Spain teams up with Poland for a mega transport hub project near Warsaw

This became clear after a high-summit agreement was signed to that respect

A two-day high-level summit between the governments of Spain and Poland took place in the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares on 31 May – 1 June. It concluded with some important results as the two countries committed to working together on developing ambitious infrastructural and transport projects on Polish territory, chief among them a proposed mega-airport near Warsaw.

This project, known as Solidarity Transport Hub (CPK), would also see the creation of railway interchanges and road connections in a way that would centralize the airport infrastructure in Poland. The goal of that country’s government is to turn the capital into a kind of a gateway to Central and Eastern Europe, while also increasing the role of railway transport and integrating the connectivity between the two modalities.

Intergovernmental consultations between the two countries have been taking place since 2003

Although the summit took place in Spain, and specifically in the municipality with the highest percentage of residents of Polish origin, the highlights of the talks was about the infrastructural transformation on the territory of the Eastern European country.

Air and railways were the two axes along which the Polish government sees economic transformation happening in the future of that country. The signed Memorandum of Understanding with Spain sought to show the confidence that the Poles placed in the expertise of the Iberian railway companies.

For example, in the development of the high-speed rail network in Poland, the Spanish Adif and its Polish counterpart PKP-PLK have been working actively since 2009, with positive results for both parties.

Likewise, the Spanish government sees great potential in the CPK project and the construction of the mega-airport and it has shown interest in making it happen, given that Spain has the experience of Aena, the world's leading airport administrator.

Poland’s ambition is to start the construction of the facility in 2023 and to complete it in 2027 with an expected initial capacity of 45 million passengers per year. That would make it equal to London’s Gatwick and Munich’s airport in terms of significance. What is more, the plan is to continue expanding that capacity to reach 100 million passengers a year which would make it one of the three largest airports in the world.