Euro 2012 football stadiums provide grounds for Polish optimism

Construction industry boom helped Poland to become the only EU country that did not slide into recession in 2009

The Guardian, Julia Kollewe, Tuesday 5 April 2011

The National Stadium under construction in Warsaw, Poland. It will
host the opening game of Euro 2012. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

These days construction cranes are almost as ubiquitous as storks' nests in the Polish countryside. New football stadiums have sprung up across the country, airports are being expanded and hundreds of miles of roads and high-speed railway routes are being built as the country gears up for the Euro 2012 football tournament, which Poland is hosting with neighbouring Ukraine.

In Warsaw Europe's biggest open-air market has given way to a 55,000 seat stadium where the opening match of Euro 2012 will be played. Stadiums accommodating about 45,000 fans each are close to completion in the other Polish host cities, Gdansk and Wroclaw, while one in Poznan was opened by singer Sting last year.

Mikolaj Piotrowski, head of communications at PL.2012, which supervises the infrastructure projects on behalf of the ministry of sport, dismissed reports of delays. He said the stadiums were on track to be finished by the autumn so they can be tested before the first whistle is blown on 8 June 2012.

When his friends heard Uefa had chosen Poland and Ukraine, "they were happy because they knew that Poland would qualify automatically, but I was happy because of what it means for the whole economy. What is most important is the legacy. The whole country needs this modernisation."

He points to research that shows the three weeks of the tournament will generate a profit of 850m zloty (£186m) for Poland, while the infrastructure investments (which cost 88bn zloty) are estimated to add 28bn zloty to Polish GDP by 2020.

The construction boom benefited Poland during the financial crisis. It was the only EU country that did not slide into recession in 2009 and is forecast to expand by at least 4% this year. "Euro 2012 was a natural stimulator for our economy during the crisis and it will be until the first whistle, but also afterwards," said Piotrowski.

Construction accounted for 7% of Polish GDP last year – in the UK it is 6% – down from 7.3% in 2009 but up from a low of 5.5% in 2004. About 30,000 people now work in the industry.

"At the moment Poland is the biggest construction site in Europe, as Germany used to be in the 1990s," said Slawomir Majman, president of the Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency in Warsaw. In Wroclaw (known as Breslau before the war when Silesia was part of Germany) the old Prussian railway station is being rebuilt from scratch.

Poland is currently the biggest beneficiary of EU funds, receiving €67bn (£59bn) for structural development between 2007 and 2013. "There is ample money; there isn't a financial problem – the problem used to be a legal one," said Majman. He explained that the building of high-speed railway lines ran into many legal obstacles and only picked up speed last year. The routes will take five more years to be completed.

"The problem was related to land ownership rights. Under the previous system [the government] sometimes had to go to court," he said. But a new Euro 2012 special law for highways, airports and railway routes, updated in April last year, has simplified procedures. By contrast, the roads have had a smoother ride, with a new motorway linking Warsaw with Berlin scheduled to be finished next spring.

Confidence in the construction sector, however, has weakened in recent months. Chris Williamson, chief economist at Markit in London, said: "Even though business has reportedly been good in the opening months of 2011, it seems that the boost from Euro 2012 is being countered by deficit-fighting public sector spending cuts in other areas, which has darkened the construction industry outlook."

Nearly 80% of infrastructure projects related to the tournament are on schedule, according to Piotrowski. He added: "When we started, 20% of Poles believed we'd be ready for Euro 2012, now that number is over 65%."

He shrugged off fears that the event, which is expected to bring at least 1m football fans to Poland, could be marred by hooliganism, noting that 35 Polish public institutions were working on 155 projects to improve security and conduct social programmes among supporters.

"The number of incidents is already dropping," he said. One of Poland's slogans for Euro 2012 is "Have fun, feel safe".