WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s most sensible leaders celebrated Saturday the opening of a new, though unfinished, canal that they say will mean ships will no longer want to get permission from Russia to sail from the Baltic Sea to ports on the Vistula Lagoon.
The occasion was timed to commemorate 83 years since the Soviet invasion of Poland in World War II and to symbolically demonstrate the end of Moscow’s word on the economy and progress of a region bordering the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. The government claims that the waterway provides Poland with complete sovereignty in the northeastern region, which desires investment and economic progress.
“The concept of opening this waterway and not having to ask permission from a country that is not a friend and whose government does not hesitate to attack and subjugate others,” Polish President Andrzej Duda said.
He said the investment will pay off through improving the land around it, through expanding the cities and ports in the lagoon through increased trade, business and tourism.
A few thousand people carrying white and red national flags gathered in the rain to watch the Zodiak II technical shipment pass through the floodgates to inaugurate the canal. The national anthem sounded and the shipments sounded their horns.
Small boats and yachts will be allowed to enter on Sunday.
The leader of Poland’s ruling right-wing party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, told the crowd that “it is the beginning of Poland’s fourth main port (Elblag) and a new impetus for the progress of this land” that will reduce unemployment, which is among the highest. in Poland. levels now at 7. 6%.
Kaczynski under pressure that the structure of the canal shows that “Poland is a really independent, sovereign and strong country that matters. “
The canal, built at a cost of nearly 2 billion zlotys ($420 million), crosses the tip of the Vistula River, east of Gdansk, to allow ships to sail from the Baltic Sea and Gdansk Bay to Elblag and the small lagoon ports without getting permission to cross the Russian Strait of Pilawa. It also shortens the Baltic-Elblag direction by about a hundred kilometers (54 nautical miles).
However, cargo ships use the passage until the road to Elblag Harbor deepens to five meters (16 feet). The paintings are expected to charge one hundred million zlotys ($21 million), which is a matter of controversy among the national government. and municipal authorities.
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