POLAND: The national government’s Centre for EU Transport Projects agency has allocated co-financing from the European Union’s Recovery & Resilience Fund to support investment in regional passenger trains worth 2·2bn złoty.
Jointly run by the ministries of infrastructure and regional development, CEUTP manages the deployment and implementation of projects co-funded through the various EU financing instruments, including RRF and the Connecting Europe Facility.
Access to RRF funds in Poland under the previous administration had been severely restricted by the European Commission due to a political dispute with the then-ruling Law & Justice party, which lost a general election held last October having been in power since 2015. In a statement on February 29, the Commission announced that full access had been granted, noting that ‘Poland has clearly expressed its willingness to address the long-standing rule of law concerns and committed working on the basis of the Commission’s recommendations’.
In May and June 2023, no less than 11 Polish regional operators and voivodship transport authorities submitted 26 bids for the RRF funds to purchase environmentally friendly rolling stock for regional services.
The availability of the RRF financing for rolling stock purchase was announced on March 13 at the European Rolling Stock Forum in Warszawa by Joanna Lech, Director of CEUTP.
Under the terms of RRF, the vehicles must be delivered by June 2026, which industry stakeholders at the Forum felt was ‘a very tight deadline’. However, only two applications — those from Koleje Dolnośląskie and Pomorskie voivodship — received the full grant requested, the remainder receiving funding less than the amount requested in the submission process.
Polregio EMUs
National regional operator Polregio is the largest recipient of money, having been allocated 780m złoty of co-financing from RRF for the purchase of 98 EMUs. The operator submitted 10 separate bids, and the trains are to be deployed across various voivodships:
- 20 for Małopolskie (two lots, 10 trains each);
- 14 for Łódźkie;
- 14 for Warmińsko-Mazurskie;
- 12 for Lubelskie;
- 10 for Pomorskie;
- 10 for Lubuskie;
- eight for Wielkopolskie;
- five for Dolnośląskie;
- five for Świętokrzyskie.
The second-largest share of the funding has gone to regional operator Koleje Mazowieckie to support procurement of 60 electric trains. A total of 554·9m złoty of co-financing has been granted under five different bids. Meanwhile, the Mazowieckie voivodship has been granted co-financing of 55·5m złoty towards the purchase of six two-car battery-electric multiple-units.
Koleje Dolnośląskie orders
Koleje Dolnośląskie has received 333·7m złoty which it is using to refinance rolling stock orders placed between 2020 and 2022. These cover the supply of 25 five-car Elf2 EMUs from Pesa; the operator had initially secured limited EU and PKO Bank Polski loans to support the procurement.
‘We decided to purchase the full amount of the order. We obtained EU funding for five of them, and for the remaining ones we received a preferential loan from PKO Bank Polski, which we intended to repay from our own funds’, explained Damian Stawikowski, President of Koleje Dolnośląskie. ‘Now we have received great news: all 25 new Elf 2s, which carry millions of passengers a month, will be co-financed by the European Union.’
KD has already put 21 of the EMUs into service, and it says that the grants could also enable money saved from loan repayments to be used to further enhance local rail services.
Pomorskie option
The Marshal’s Office of the Pomorskie voivodship signed a contract with Newag in August to supply one four-car Impuls2 EMU with the option for nine more. The voivodship now plans to exercise the option using the EU funding.
The total value of the order for the 10 trains is 362·9m złoty, of which 247·8m złoty is covered by the RRF financing.
Among the other applications, Łódźkie voivodship has received 74·3m złoty to support the purchase of 10 EMUs which are estimated to cost 345·8m złoty. A further 67·7m złoty is going to Wielkopolskiego voivodship to fund eight new EMUs at an estimated cost of 315·4 złoty.
However, five applications were unsuccessful. These bids were from Warszawa suburban operator SKM, the Opolskie, Zachodniopomorskie and Małopolskie voivodships, and a second bid from Mazowieckie voivodship.
