Today’s news round up in Poland

Start your day with a summary of today’s top stories from Poland’s leading news sites.

Wyborcza.pl – The daily carried a story that the Government Strategic Reserves Agency (RARS) is spending PLN 200 million (EUR 42.8 million) on medical equipment to create a central renting place. According to the daily, RARS is purchasing, for handicapped people, equipment such as wheelchairs or special beds, without public tenders and without the major producers. Wyborcza.pl also wrote that the agency has no legal basis to rent medical equipment to people, it can only rent it to hospitals and municipalities. Wyborcza.pl added that patients' organisations were shocked, as they wanted renting places all around the country so that people could have easy access and could try out the equipment. RARS did not respond to any of the newspaper's questions on the matter.

rp.pl – According to a survey done by the daily Rzeczpospolita, companies in Poland, including those which are state-owned, are switching to renewable energy due to high prices of electricity and unstable market conditions. The majority of surveyed firms have already built their own solar farms but are struggling in constructing wind ones. The widely contested 10H rule which forbids the construction of wind farms where there are buildings within a distance of ten times the height of the turbine has stopped investment in onshore wind farms. Changing that regulation is one of the milestones agreed upon by Poland's government and the European Commission. Poland has to fulfil the milestones to receive access to the bloc's post-pandemic Recovery and Resilience Facility.

TVPInfo.pl – According to research by UCE Research and BLIX Group, 81 percent of Poles plan to limit holiday expenses this year, including buying less and cheaper food. Only 11 percent do not intend to save money. "One of the major reasons are increased prices but not only," said Marcin Lenkiewicz from BLIX Group. "We are not trying to save money, but we are also trying not to spend too much," he added. A majority of Poles plan to go shopping with a shopping list and to not buy anything that was not on the list, while only 4 percent have no list.

RMF24.pl – Poland's Institute of Meteorology and Water Management (IMGW) is warning that a harsh winter is coming to Poland. The low pressure area called Brygida (Bridget) will bring not only snow but also low temperatures. It will hit Poland on Saturday with rain, and then snow. On Tuesday, temperatures mainly in the mountain areas (southern Poland) will drop to minus 20 Centigrade.