Poland’s last coal mines keep churning as the EU pivots to green energy

In the spring of 2026, Poland remained the sole European Union member where coal mining still employed roughly eighty thousand workers, a figure that starkly contrasted with the bloc’s broader commitment to phase out fossil fuels and highlighted the country’s lagging alignment with the continent’s energy transition agenda. While several of the nation’s historic pits are being gradually repurposed for alternative industrial or commercial uses, the overall volume of coal extracted domestically continues to rise in tandem with record global production levels, a development further amplified by the escalation of oil and gas prices triggered by the conflict in Iran, which has nevertheless prompted only sporadic public debate about the practicality of a complete domestic phase‑out.

A representative illustration of this paradox can be found in the daily routine of Rafal Dzuman, a forty‑nine‑year‑old supervisor of the G‑2 crew at the Murcki‑Staszic mine on the southern outskirts of Katowice, who for more than two decades descends approximately seven hundred metres beneath the earth to oversee the extraction of roughly twenty‑three thousand tonnes of coal per day at a facility originally opened in 1657 and now owned by the Polish conglomerate PGG Group. The persistence of such a labor‑intensive operation, supported by state subsidies and regulated under a mining safety framework that has historically prioritized production over worker health, underscores a broader institutional inconsistency whereby national energy security arguments are invoked to justify continued reliance on a commodity whose global demand is increasingly marginalised by the intensifying climate policy regime of the European Union.

Consequently, Poland’s ongoing reliance on coal not only accentuates the disconnect between its national industrial policy and the EU’s climate objectives but also illustrates the predictability of a transition that appears to be postponed rather than abandoned, leaving both workers and the environment exposed to the foreseeable costs of a delayed energy shift.

Published: April 21, 2026