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“Granting Poland and the Ukraine the right to organize the Euro 2012 Championship is an unprecedented event in the history of both countries” said the Chairman of the Confederation of Polish Employers, Andrzej Malinowski, in this morning’s press conference at Garrigues’ head office.

The senior representative for Polish employers announced the creation of the Coalition of Polish and Ukrainian Employers, an association of the two largest employer organizations in both countries whose aim is to help the governments and parliaments of the two countries to prepare the championship in the best possible manner. “We want to show that Poland and the Ukraine are markets with a great deal of potential. Poland is an active member of the European Union and, in the case of the Ukraine, we hope to be able to help strengthen its economic integration with the EU. States and to show that it is a country with an enormous and, as yet untapped, economic and intellectual potential”, said the Chairman of Polish employers.

In this project, the Garrigues law firm (which has an office in Warsaw) will be responsible for providing legal and tax advisory services to the Coalition of Employers, with particular emphasis on infrastructure, which is the area requiring the largest amount of investment. This Spanish firm’s experience in organizing large cultural and sporting events both in Spain and elsewhere and its presence in Eastern Europe were the key factors behind the decision of the Coalition of Polish and Ukrainian Employers to engage the services of Garrigues. “Polish legislation still has to be implemented. Our aim is to achieve more favorable legislation to boost public and private investment, based on the Spanish model”, explained Jaime Fúster, the partner responsible for the international expansion of Garrigues in Eastern Europe.

Investment in Poland
The chairman of Polish employers recalled the country’s infrastructure needs, by referring to the figures published by the Minister of Transport days earlier. Poland is to make a grate investment in roads and infrastructure between 2007 and 2015. Most of it will be spent on building divided highways and freeways and modernizing its intercity highways, all of which are charted in the Government Program for the Construction of Intercity Highways for that period. A total of 770 kilometers of freeway is to be built under the traditional system, 375 kilometers of freeway under the concession system, 2000 kilometers of divided highway and 489 kilometers of bypasses (a total of 62 bypasses are to be built). The program also includes the modernization of around 2000 kilometers of intercity highways.

There are plans to invest up to €20,000 million in the hotel and restaurant industry. More than 40,000 rooms will be needed to accommodate fans in the six Polish cities where the football matches are to be played during the competition. Orbis plans to build 33 hotels by 2010; Hilton intends to build more than 10 hotels in the next five years and Sheraton is currently building a hotel in the Polish city of Sopot. There are also plans for the reconstruction of hotels near airports.

The estimated costs of building the football stadiums where the competition is to be held are: €500 million for the National Stadium in Warsaw; €320 million for the Baltic Arena in Gdansk; €90 million for the modernization of the Wisla team Stadium in Krakow; €240 million for the reconstruction of the Silesian Stadium in Chorzow; €200 million for the reconstruction of the Lech Stadium in Poznan and a further €200 million for the reconstruction of the Olympic Stadium in Wroclaw.

Conference in September “Euro 2012 - Opportunities and obstacles”
The next step for the recently created “Coalition of Polish and Ukrainian Employees” will take place in September with the conference entitled “Euro 2012: opportunities and obstacles” to be held in Warsaw.