Poland will stand by its decision regarding the sale of state energy group Energa to listed power group Polska Grupa Energetyczna PGE, Treasury Minister Aleksander Grad reiterated yesterday.
Poland wants to sell 84.2% stake in Energa to PGE for 7.5 billion zlotys.
The deal is subject to the approval of anti-monopoly body UOKiK, which has consistently objected it, claiming the transaction would limit competition on the Polish energy market.
According to the State Treasury, the criteria laid down in the proposed “Poland’s Energy Policy until 2030” program, which envisages a 38 billion euro investment in the country’s energy sector show a necessity for the consolidation of energy consortiums, including the merger of PGE and Energa, which will then be able to compete on European markets and undertake large-scale investments such as nuclear energy plants, the Polish Radio External Service portal - thenews.pl writes.
PGE CEO Tomasz Zadroga said in an interview for Rzeczpospolita daily that PGE's planned takeover of Energa was justified from the economic point of view and would not lead to energy price hikes, , referring to UOKiK’s opposition.
Grad also said that Poland will seriously consider taking advance dividend payment from PGE to end speculations that PGE will be unable to pay dividend once it takes over Energa.
"We will have the supervisory board motion for auditing the results for the first three quarters," he added.
PGE repeatedly said it would continue to pay out dividend on regular basis at the level of 40-50% of net profits, despite the planned acquisition of Energa.
Company CEO also repeated in September that PGE was able to pay an advance dividend in early December based on 9M results regardless of potential investment in Energa.
PGE prospectus assumes dividend payments at 40-50% of net profits longer term, while short-term levels will be adjusted to market situation and capex needs.
Former deputy PM and economy minister Janusz Steinhoff told Polish Radio that the privatization deal is an “obvious attempt by the government to reduce the massive budget deficit.”
A number of economists, former ministers and publicists have appealed to the Polish Prime Minister to forego pressure on the UOKiK with regards to the planned takeover of Energa by PGE, thenews.pl writes.
(by warsaw voice)
niedziela, 26 września 2010
sobota, 25 września 2010
The Crisis: A Lesson Well Learned
Marek Belka, governor of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), talks to Andrzej Jonas and Andrzej Ratajczyk.
In an interview published recently in a Polish daily newspaper, you commented extensively on the government’s financial policies. Does this mean that you see your role as central bank governor in terms of reviewing the government’s economic policy?
Yes, to some extent. I think the NBP governor is in a way obligated to evaluate the country’s macroeconomic condition. He doesn’t necessarily have to go into the particulars, reviewing detailed proposals regarding the structure of spending or taxes, for example. But nobody should be surprised at him speaking out about macroeconomic issues.
Do you think the long-term financial plan recently proposed by Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski meets Poland’s financial needs? In other words, is a cautious, evolutionary approach focused on revenue rather than spending the best solution right now?
I don’t think Poland’s current situation requires any radical steps. Those arguing that Poland’s public finances are in disastrous condition—and that the economic situation in the country is supposedly getting closer to that in Greece—betray a lack of professionalism and a lack of knowledge on what has happened, what is happening and where we are in all this.
This doesn’t alter my feeling that the plan announced by the government does not provide a complete answer to the challenges Poland faces. I expected the government to take advantage of the substantial (and greater than projected) improvement in the economy and decide on more ambitious measures in terms of spending. I expected measures reducing the public finance deficit to 5 percent of GDP. That would be a good result. The government’s proposal suggests the deficit will be about 5.5 percent of GDP. This calls into question the possibility of painlessly reaching a 3-percent deficit in 2012. For this to happen, the economic situation would have to become much better than we predict today. Meanwhile, the finance minister shouldn’t be an optimist.
However, I repeat, the situation is not dramatic. Poland is not having any problems with financing its debt, or rather its borrowing needs, because that is the ultimate criterion of a stable situation. The current deficit offers an incentive to look for a few more billion zlotys of savings in terms of spending. That would give Poland’s finances a greater degree of security and would be a sign for international markets that the Polish government really is acting vigorously.
Wouldn’t this increase Poland’s credibility and help attract more foreign capital?
Obviously. I think what the government has declared is the absolute minimum that the markets expect. This is suggested by the reaction of two rating agencies which decided that the long-term financial plan’s guidelines were enough to not change Poland’s rating. On the other hand, they aren’t ambitious enough for the rating to be raised.
Today the most important thing for foreign investors is that Poland is a country which, due to various circumstances, including measures undertaken or abandoned, has avoided a recession. This year the Polish economy will grow at a rate of over 3 percent. That’s important to foreign investors.
Not long ago there was a debate in Poland on whether the central bank should get involved in stimulating the country’s economic development or concentrate exclusively on monetary policy. What is your view? As the central bank’s governor will you undertake measures to support the economy?
Yes, of course. The NBP’s fundamental task is to maintain stable price levels, which means fighting inflation. Another important task is to support the government’s efforts to foster economic development, of course as long as this is compatible with the central bank’s fundamental task. This doesn’t mean that the NBP should artificially lower or raise interest rates.
Should the central bank influence the zloty exchange rate?
No. I want to state firmly that the NBP pursues an inflation targeting strategy and not an exchange rate strategy. These two goals can sometimes contradict each other. We don’t have any target rate, but we do reserve the right to occasional interventions when we believe that the currency market has been destabilized. Excessive exchange rate fluctuations are harmful to the economy. In this sense, we can support the economy. Another form of the NBP’s support for economic development are measures undertaken in collaboration with other institutions to maintain a high degree of stability in the financial system, especially the banking system, in Poland. Any crisis in the banking sector would be the worst thing imaginable for the country’s economic development.
Doesn’t the prospect of Poland joining the euro zone mean that some interest will have to be shown in the zloty’s exchange rate?
First of all, we still have a long way to go before we adopt the euro. But of course the price of the zloty is too important to ignore. That’s why we are observing the markets and if we notice anything amiss about the price, any dangerous fluctuation, we have the necessary instruments to intervene and stabilize the situation. In principle, though, such measures are supposed to be the exception, not the rule.
Do you support Poland’s speedy adoption of the euro? When could this take place?
As a point of principle I don’t speculate on the date of euro-zone entry. I’m sure we will adopt the euro at the best moment for Poland.
The global crisis has revised some patterns of thinking about economic mechanisms and financial markets. What are your thoughts on how the markets behaved in the crisis?
They are many. Though I never uncritically accepted that markets are always effective, reality turned out to be more complicated. The crisis has shown that not only markets but the entire financial system can be ineffective. With regard to our region, the crisis has made it evident that the economy constitutes a whole. Even if there is order in public finances, this is no guarantee that the economy won’t experience some serious turbulence if a substantial lack of equilibrium occurs in the private sector. The Baltic states are a case in point; they had very low public debt and budget deficit indices, but huge imbalances grew in the private sector there. The result was a huge recession in those countries.
Does the course of the financial crisis and the results of measures undertaken to combat the effects of the crisis mean that we now have an operational global early warning system? Has the crisis taught the financial world anything?
The crisis has certainly taught us a great deal. It seems that a global economic disaster was prevented mainly by the coordinated activities of the G-20 countries, or in reality several of the world’s biggest economic powers. These were unprecedented undertakings due to the state intervention that broke all kinds of free-market rules. In fact the key moment was not fiscal stimulation but the joint declaration of the G-20 leaders after the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank that they would not allow any other key financial institution to go bankrupt. That could have spelled the end of capitalism, or at least the end of market discipline. That’s very serious, but in an emergency situation we are prepared to make sometimes drastic decisions. For example, to save our lives we agree to a leg amputation. This is what happened after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. If the Americans had let the next endangered giant organization, AIG, to go under, it’s possible that no large financial institution in the world would have survived.
But isn’t it true that completely anti-system measures create a new system?
Yes and no. Nobody in the world today is thinking about a return to socialism. Nobody believes that the state taking over banks in Ireland or Britain means these banks will stay nationalized. It’s obvious they were taken over to save them from bankruptcy, to prevent a domino effect. Once they are healed, they will be sold on the market. Since there is a problem, some kind of system needs to be introduced that would prevent such a crisis from occurring again. We need regulations. We know that one of the causes of the crisis was that the financial sector was inappropriately liberalized in the 1980s and 1990s. Today we know we need to go back to some of those earlier regulations. Right now there are several concepts that are slowly being put into practice. This is not a good time for banks, though, because they don’t know what new regulations will appear and they don’t know how to behave. That in itself is dangerous for the development of the economic situation. In any case, we are building some kind of new system of regulation. That’s something that cannot be done using market solutions, unfortunately.
What is your opinion on the regulations in place in Poland? Do you agree that the Polish banking system didn’t collapse precisely thanks to rather restrictive regulations and a degree of backwardness compared to the most developed markets, such as the lack of sophisticated financial instruments?
First of all, the regulations in force in Poland are mostly not a local product but the effect of agreements on the international arena. But it’s true that supervisory regulations are partly the result of the work of national supervisory bodies, in Poland’s case the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF). To some extent, the S recommendation which came into force in 2006 restricted the scale of dangerous growth of loans denominated in foreign currencies. The T recommendation is being introduced now, requiring banks to thoroughly check clients applying for loans. The introduction of more regulations aimed at restricting lending in foreign currencies is being discussed as well. In other words, regulations in Poland certainly played a certain role, while the KNF is quoted as an example of good banking supervision.
As for sophisticated financial instruments, I don’t think these should be perceived as being more innovative or better than traditional ones. I think this is one of the problems of the global financial system, which at one point began to function for its own sake. Most of those “financial innovations” didn’t yield any added value. Actually, they served to bypass regulations or to avoid paying taxes. I say “no thanks” to such innovation.
Views have been voiced recently that too much foreign capital in the Polish banking system may not be good for the economy, especially in a crisis. Do you agree?
There were certainly fears that, to bolster their financial situation, foreign banks would withdraw money from their subsidiaries. This applied not only to Poland but other countries in the region as well. Luckily these fears came to nothing. Nothing of the kind happened. No major foreign bank withdrew from these markets. This proved that banks treat their investment in the region as long-term investment.
What do you think of PKO BP bank’s potential takeover of Bank Zachodni WBK, which is currently owned by Allied Irish Bank?
I think we need to wait for the matter to be resolved and not get carried away by emotions. All the more since it’s not set in stone that PKO BP is the favorite in the race to take over this bank.
How do you rate the present condition of the Polish banking sector?
Very highly. This has been confirmed by the results of stress tests in which PKO BP made a very good impression compared with European banks.
Seeing as the Polish economy is developing much faster than the rest of Europe and the Polish financial system is stable and secure, could Warsaw become a regional financial hub?
I think the financial market institutions we have managed to build in Poland, namely the stock exchange and financial supervision, are good enough for foreign companies to be quoted on the Polish market. But turning Warsaw into the financial hub of Central and Eastern Europe requires time. It’s a process. Poland isn’t an economic powerhouse; it is a medium-sized economy. Even Germany, though it has much greater economic potential than Poland, is having a hard time turning Frankfurt into a true financial hub for Europe, since there’s London’s City and its long tradition to contend with. I do think, however, that Warsaw’s importance on the European financial market will grow.
(by Warsaw Voice)
In an interview published recently in a Polish daily newspaper, you commented extensively on the government’s financial policies. Does this mean that you see your role as central bank governor in terms of reviewing the government’s economic policy?
Yes, to some extent. I think the NBP governor is in a way obligated to evaluate the country’s macroeconomic condition. He doesn’t necessarily have to go into the particulars, reviewing detailed proposals regarding the structure of spending or taxes, for example. But nobody should be surprised at him speaking out about macroeconomic issues.
Do you think the long-term financial plan recently proposed by Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski meets Poland’s financial needs? In other words, is a cautious, evolutionary approach focused on revenue rather than spending the best solution right now?
I don’t think Poland’s current situation requires any radical steps. Those arguing that Poland’s public finances are in disastrous condition—and that the economic situation in the country is supposedly getting closer to that in Greece—betray a lack of professionalism and a lack of knowledge on what has happened, what is happening and where we are in all this.
This doesn’t alter my feeling that the plan announced by the government does not provide a complete answer to the challenges Poland faces. I expected the government to take advantage of the substantial (and greater than projected) improvement in the economy and decide on more ambitious measures in terms of spending. I expected measures reducing the public finance deficit to 5 percent of GDP. That would be a good result. The government’s proposal suggests the deficit will be about 5.5 percent of GDP. This calls into question the possibility of painlessly reaching a 3-percent deficit in 2012. For this to happen, the economic situation would have to become much better than we predict today. Meanwhile, the finance minister shouldn’t be an optimist.
However, I repeat, the situation is not dramatic. Poland is not having any problems with financing its debt, or rather its borrowing needs, because that is the ultimate criterion of a stable situation. The current deficit offers an incentive to look for a few more billion zlotys of savings in terms of spending. That would give Poland’s finances a greater degree of security and would be a sign for international markets that the Polish government really is acting vigorously.
Wouldn’t this increase Poland’s credibility and help attract more foreign capital?
Obviously. I think what the government has declared is the absolute minimum that the markets expect. This is suggested by the reaction of two rating agencies which decided that the long-term financial plan’s guidelines were enough to not change Poland’s rating. On the other hand, they aren’t ambitious enough for the rating to be raised.
Today the most important thing for foreign investors is that Poland is a country which, due to various circumstances, including measures undertaken or abandoned, has avoided a recession. This year the Polish economy will grow at a rate of over 3 percent. That’s important to foreign investors.
Not long ago there was a debate in Poland on whether the central bank should get involved in stimulating the country’s economic development or concentrate exclusively on monetary policy. What is your view? As the central bank’s governor will you undertake measures to support the economy?
Yes, of course. The NBP’s fundamental task is to maintain stable price levels, which means fighting inflation. Another important task is to support the government’s efforts to foster economic development, of course as long as this is compatible with the central bank’s fundamental task. This doesn’t mean that the NBP should artificially lower or raise interest rates.
Should the central bank influence the zloty exchange rate?
No. I want to state firmly that the NBP pursues an inflation targeting strategy and not an exchange rate strategy. These two goals can sometimes contradict each other. We don’t have any target rate, but we do reserve the right to occasional interventions when we believe that the currency market has been destabilized. Excessive exchange rate fluctuations are harmful to the economy. In this sense, we can support the economy. Another form of the NBP’s support for economic development are measures undertaken in collaboration with other institutions to maintain a high degree of stability in the financial system, especially the banking system, in Poland. Any crisis in the banking sector would be the worst thing imaginable for the country’s economic development.
Doesn’t the prospect of Poland joining the euro zone mean that some interest will have to be shown in the zloty’s exchange rate?
First of all, we still have a long way to go before we adopt the euro. But of course the price of the zloty is too important to ignore. That’s why we are observing the markets and if we notice anything amiss about the price, any dangerous fluctuation, we have the necessary instruments to intervene and stabilize the situation. In principle, though, such measures are supposed to be the exception, not the rule.
Do you support Poland’s speedy adoption of the euro? When could this take place?
As a point of principle I don’t speculate on the date of euro-zone entry. I’m sure we will adopt the euro at the best moment for Poland.
The global crisis has revised some patterns of thinking about economic mechanisms and financial markets. What are your thoughts on how the markets behaved in the crisis?
They are many. Though I never uncritically accepted that markets are always effective, reality turned out to be more complicated. The crisis has shown that not only markets but the entire financial system can be ineffective. With regard to our region, the crisis has made it evident that the economy constitutes a whole. Even if there is order in public finances, this is no guarantee that the economy won’t experience some serious turbulence if a substantial lack of equilibrium occurs in the private sector. The Baltic states are a case in point; they had very low public debt and budget deficit indices, but huge imbalances grew in the private sector there. The result was a huge recession in those countries.
Does the course of the financial crisis and the results of measures undertaken to combat the effects of the crisis mean that we now have an operational global early warning system? Has the crisis taught the financial world anything?
The crisis has certainly taught us a great deal. It seems that a global economic disaster was prevented mainly by the coordinated activities of the G-20 countries, or in reality several of the world’s biggest economic powers. These were unprecedented undertakings due to the state intervention that broke all kinds of free-market rules. In fact the key moment was not fiscal stimulation but the joint declaration of the G-20 leaders after the collapse of Lehman Brothers bank that they would not allow any other key financial institution to go bankrupt. That could have spelled the end of capitalism, or at least the end of market discipline. That’s very serious, but in an emergency situation we are prepared to make sometimes drastic decisions. For example, to save our lives we agree to a leg amputation. This is what happened after the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. If the Americans had let the next endangered giant organization, AIG, to go under, it’s possible that no large financial institution in the world would have survived.
But isn’t it true that completely anti-system measures create a new system?
Yes and no. Nobody in the world today is thinking about a return to socialism. Nobody believes that the state taking over banks in Ireland or Britain means these banks will stay nationalized. It’s obvious they were taken over to save them from bankruptcy, to prevent a domino effect. Once they are healed, they will be sold on the market. Since there is a problem, some kind of system needs to be introduced that would prevent such a crisis from occurring again. We need regulations. We know that one of the causes of the crisis was that the financial sector was inappropriately liberalized in the 1980s and 1990s. Today we know we need to go back to some of those earlier regulations. Right now there are several concepts that are slowly being put into practice. This is not a good time for banks, though, because they don’t know what new regulations will appear and they don’t know how to behave. That in itself is dangerous for the development of the economic situation. In any case, we are building some kind of new system of regulation. That’s something that cannot be done using market solutions, unfortunately.
What is your opinion on the regulations in place in Poland? Do you agree that the Polish banking system didn’t collapse precisely thanks to rather restrictive regulations and a degree of backwardness compared to the most developed markets, such as the lack of sophisticated financial instruments?
First of all, the regulations in force in Poland are mostly not a local product but the effect of agreements on the international arena. But it’s true that supervisory regulations are partly the result of the work of national supervisory bodies, in Poland’s case the Polish Financial Supervision Authority (KNF). To some extent, the S recommendation which came into force in 2006 restricted the scale of dangerous growth of loans denominated in foreign currencies. The T recommendation is being introduced now, requiring banks to thoroughly check clients applying for loans. The introduction of more regulations aimed at restricting lending in foreign currencies is being discussed as well. In other words, regulations in Poland certainly played a certain role, while the KNF is quoted as an example of good banking supervision.
As for sophisticated financial instruments, I don’t think these should be perceived as being more innovative or better than traditional ones. I think this is one of the problems of the global financial system, which at one point began to function for its own sake. Most of those “financial innovations” didn’t yield any added value. Actually, they served to bypass regulations or to avoid paying taxes. I say “no thanks” to such innovation.
Views have been voiced recently that too much foreign capital in the Polish banking system may not be good for the economy, especially in a crisis. Do you agree?
There were certainly fears that, to bolster their financial situation, foreign banks would withdraw money from their subsidiaries. This applied not only to Poland but other countries in the region as well. Luckily these fears came to nothing. Nothing of the kind happened. No major foreign bank withdrew from these markets. This proved that banks treat their investment in the region as long-term investment.
What do you think of PKO BP bank’s potential takeover of Bank Zachodni WBK, which is currently owned by Allied Irish Bank?
I think we need to wait for the matter to be resolved and not get carried away by emotions. All the more since it’s not set in stone that PKO BP is the favorite in the race to take over this bank.
How do you rate the present condition of the Polish banking sector?
Very highly. This has been confirmed by the results of stress tests in which PKO BP made a very good impression compared with European banks.
Seeing as the Polish economy is developing much faster than the rest of Europe and the Polish financial system is stable and secure, could Warsaw become a regional financial hub?
I think the financial market institutions we have managed to build in Poland, namely the stock exchange and financial supervision, are good enough for foreign companies to be quoted on the Polish market. But turning Warsaw into the financial hub of Central and Eastern Europe requires time. It’s a process. Poland isn’t an economic powerhouse; it is a medium-sized economy. Even Germany, though it has much greater economic potential than Poland, is having a hard time turning Frankfurt into a true financial hub for Europe, since there’s London’s City and its long tradition to contend with. I do think, however, that Warsaw’s importance on the European financial market will grow.
(by Warsaw Voice)
piątek, 24 września 2010
Balcerowicz
Poland was the first Central-Eastern European country to start radical market reforms. Thanks to that, we have been catching up with the West. Poland was also the only European country in 2009 to avoid recession. Having said that, let me stress that Poland needs reforms too, in order to reduce or eliminate problems before they take on serious proportions and in order to strengthen economic growth. Poland has great potential but that potential has to be released through reforms.
What do I have in mind? First, we should tackle, as soon as possible, the problem of the public debt and public finances. The root cause of that is that the spending-to- GDP ratio in Poland is too high. It is now about 46 percent. And a good way of tackling this problem is to increase reforms which would increase the employment ratio among people or individuals who are capable of working, and also to reduce excessive spending.
It is very important that Poland starts doing this as soon as possible. If we mobilize more people to work, this would not only help cure the problems with public finances and the growing public debt but would also boost our economic growth through increased employment.
Second, we should complete privatization, which is a fundamental reform both for politics and for the economy. Because privatization means that enterprises are in a way liberated from political influences which are usually not very good for them and for development. And Poland still has a pretty high ratio of state-owned enterprises as measured by employment, higher than most Central and Eastern European countries. That challenges us and demands that we accelerate privatization, which would boost productivity and would at the same time help Poland reduce the growth of public debt, through privatization revenues.
Third, we should deregulate the economy in a decisive way so that markets can work, so that markets are flexible, including the labor market and the housing market.
And fourth, while our justice system is, fortunately, independent and judges are independent, courts need to be much more efficient, prosecutors should be much more professional, on the whole.
If I had to mention some other things, I would also stress education reform. The educational standard of Polish people is pretty high but we need to strengthen it, especially regarding higher education, and to strengthen the links between institutions of higher education and the economy. So as to foster innovation-based growth.
These reforms are not very different from those needed in most Western economies. Poland is well advanced in the transformation of its economy and quite successful. In order to continue that, to strengthen economic growth, to catch up even faster with the West—which is quite feasible—we need to introduce these reforms. And, as in every democratic country, that needs and requires that a substantial part of the public is mobilized, so that it supports what is good for Poland.
What do I have in mind? First, we should tackle, as soon as possible, the problem of the public debt and public finances. The root cause of that is that the spending-to- GDP ratio in Poland is too high. It is now about 46 percent. And a good way of tackling this problem is to increase reforms which would increase the employment ratio among people or individuals who are capable of working, and also to reduce excessive spending.
It is very important that Poland starts doing this as soon as possible. If we mobilize more people to work, this would not only help cure the problems with public finances and the growing public debt but would also boost our economic growth through increased employment.
Second, we should complete privatization, which is a fundamental reform both for politics and for the economy. Because privatization means that enterprises are in a way liberated from political influences which are usually not very good for them and for development. And Poland still has a pretty high ratio of state-owned enterprises as measured by employment, higher than most Central and Eastern European countries. That challenges us and demands that we accelerate privatization, which would boost productivity and would at the same time help Poland reduce the growth of public debt, through privatization revenues.
Third, we should deregulate the economy in a decisive way so that markets can work, so that markets are flexible, including the labor market and the housing market.
And fourth, while our justice system is, fortunately, independent and judges are independent, courts need to be much more efficient, prosecutors should be much more professional, on the whole.
If I had to mention some other things, I would also stress education reform. The educational standard of Polish people is pretty high but we need to strengthen it, especially regarding higher education, and to strengthen the links between institutions of higher education and the economy. So as to foster innovation-based growth.
These reforms are not very different from those needed in most Western economies. Poland is well advanced in the transformation of its economy and quite successful. In order to continue that, to strengthen economic growth, to catch up even faster with the West—which is quite feasible—we need to introduce these reforms. And, as in every democratic country, that needs and requires that a substantial part of the public is mobilized, so that it supports what is good for Poland.
Poland - Russia Gas Problems
Poland is not likely to sign the annex extending the Polish-Russian gas deal until 2037 in the coming days but mulls an option to increase gas supplies within the framework of the current contract validity until 2022, deputy PM and Economy Minister Waldemar Pawlak told reporters.
"There are various elements on the table," he added. "It is possible that the current validity of the contract, that is by 2022, will be maintained."
Poland continues to negotiate the deal with Gazprom that would both extend the duration of the contract and offer a possibility of boosting supplies from the current 7.45 bcm (according to the Polish norms) annually to 9 bcm.
The deal covers also gas flowing onwards to the rest of Europe via the Yamal pipeline.
The deal would have gone into effect in 2010 were it not for concerns raised by European Commission about access to the pipeline, which according to EU rules should not be restricted by any such deal.
EC said the pipeline between the two countries should be managed independently and open to third-party suppliers.
On Monday gas monopolist PGNiG warned industrial clients that it may fail to deliver contracted gas in Q4 as of late October as a result of delays in securing supplies to replace imports from the east.
Poland will also talk with the Ukraine next week about the possibilities of using Ukrainian gas pipelines to transit gas bought from German E.ON Ruhrgas to Poland in an attempt to have a back-up plan in case long-term gas contract with Russia is not signed on time, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily writes.
Poland wants to improve its bargaining position in the negotiations with Russia - Russia is pressing for the fastest possible signature of a the contract in its current form.
"There are various elements on the table," he added. "It is possible that the current validity of the contract, that is by 2022, will be maintained."
Poland continues to negotiate the deal with Gazprom that would both extend the duration of the contract and offer a possibility of boosting supplies from the current 7.45 bcm (according to the Polish norms) annually to 9 bcm.
The deal covers also gas flowing onwards to the rest of Europe via the Yamal pipeline.
The deal would have gone into effect in 2010 were it not for concerns raised by European Commission about access to the pipeline, which according to EU rules should not be restricted by any such deal.
EC said the pipeline between the two countries should be managed independently and open to third-party suppliers.
On Monday gas monopolist PGNiG warned industrial clients that it may fail to deliver contracted gas in Q4 as of late October as a result of delays in securing supplies to replace imports from the east.
Poland will also talk with the Ukraine next week about the possibilities of using Ukrainian gas pipelines to transit gas bought from German E.ON Ruhrgas to Poland in an attempt to have a back-up plan in case long-term gas contract with Russia is not signed on time, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna daily writes.
Poland wants to improve its bargaining position in the negotiations with Russia - Russia is pressing for the fastest possible signature of a the contract in its current form.
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