On 7 July 2016, 22 July 2016 and 30 November 2016, the Polish Parliament adopted three separate acts providing for amendments to the Act of 10 April 1997 – Energy Law (“EL”) which significantly affect fuel sectors, i.e.:
- the bill of amendment to act on tax on goods and services and selected other acts (hereinafter: “VAT Amendments”), which entered into force on 1 August 2016; and
- the bill of amendments to the act of 10 April 1997 – Energy Law and selected other acts (hereinafter the “EL Amendments”) which entered into force on 2 September 2016
- the bill of amendments to the act of 10 April 1997 – Energy Law and selected other acts (hereinafter: the “December EL Amendments”) which enters into force on 1 January 2017.
Furthermore, in accordance with the EL Amendments, the Ministry of Energy announced the new draft regulation on minimum level of diversification of foreign gas supply dated 16 November 2016 (hereinafter: “DDR”) which is available at: https://legislacja.rcl.gov.pl/projekt/12292309/katalog/12392470#12392470. The DDR should be adopted by 2 March 2017 and supersede the current Diversification Regulation of 24 October 2000.
The primary objectives of the aforementioned adopted and proposed legislation are to:
- improve transparency and integrity of the markets related to the liquid and gaseous fuels, and
- limit VAT carousels related to trade in liquid fuels,
- mitigate certain barriers to LNG supplies to the LNG terminal in Świnoujście (“Terminal”) which started its commercial operations in June 2016,
- ensure gradual limitation of tariff obligations currently applicable to gas supplies (trade in gaseous fuels) in accordance with the verdict of the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter: the “ECJ”) dated 10 September 2015 (C‑36/14).