Roads to nowhere

The government's plan to deliver approximately 3,000 km of new highway and expressway before Euro 2012 soccer championship is in serious jeopardy amid bureaucratic, environmental and financial hindrances.

Heavy bureaucracy has long been an obstruction for the construction industry but, with the pressure of Euro 2012 seniors in the construction industry are warning that Poland is attempting the impossible.

"In order to complete the governmental plan, about 400 km of new roads would have to be completed every year from now on. If the government continues to act slowly, then soon 600 km of road will have to be constructed annually, a length not achieved anywhere in the world," Dariusz Słotwiński, a former CEO of a road construction company Dromex, told Gazeta Wyborcza daily. Even though road construction companies are far from their capacity, this rate is unrealistic.