During the December session of the Bolesławiec City Council, councilors will adopt—or not—a resolution supporting the appeal by the Lubin City Council to Prime Minister Donald Tusk. In it, Lubin’s local government officials firmly call “for abolishing the financial burden imposed on Polska Miedź by a tax devised exclusively for the Copper Basin.” The councilors from Lubin wrote: “The unjust and harmful to Polish industry tax on the extraction of copper and silver must be withdrawn!”
The justification for the draft resolution of the Bolesławiec Council states:
The financial burden imposed on Polska Miedź by the tax on copper and silver extraction produces negative effects felt by residents of the entire Lower Silesia—a reduction in the revenue of the Lower Silesian voivodeship’s local government due to a lower share of CIT revenue. Reduced profitability of extracting these minerals directly affects the facilities of the KGHM Polska Miedź mining and metallurgical complex, their employees, families and the residents of the “copper” municipalities. But this situation also deprives us of hope of restoring extraction in the so-called old Copper Basin in the area of the Grodziec syncline, on the border of Bolesławiec and Złotoryja counties.
Adopting this resolution is justified by the future of our city, which should also be connected with the wealth of our land. Unfavorable conditions for the development of the copper, silver and rare-metals extraction sector will encourage KGHM to search for deposits outside Poland. Hopes of a return of extraction to the old Copper Basin are diminishing as the amount of this tax grows exponentially [podkreślenia pochodzą od redakcji – przyp. „ii”].
We will return to this topic.
(information: ii; header photo: Jonathan Zander (Digon3)/Wikimedia Commons)