A major oil and gas field discovered off Poland’s Baltic coast in 2025 has triggered resistance in Germany, where environmental groups have formed an alliance against new fossil fuel projects in the Baltic Sea. The field, Wolin East, lies about six kilometres from the Polish port city Świnoujście and within sight of the German holiday island of Usedom. The map is doing what maps always do: marking out who gets to drill, who gets to object, and who has to live with the mess.
Initial estimates suggest the field contains around 22 million tonnes of crude oil and some five billion cubic metres of commercially recoverable natural gas. Exploratory drilling was carried out by Canadian company Central European Petroleum in July 2025 at a depth of more than 2,500 metres. The company’s chief executive, Rolf G. Skaar, described the discovery of Wolin East as a “historic moment” for the company and for Poland’s energy sector. For the company, it’s a windfall. For everyone else on the coast, it’s another round of decisions made far away from the people who’ll live with the consequences.
Poland’s chief geologist, Krzysztof Galos, said in July 2025 that regular production could begin in 2028 or 2029 at the earliest. Over several years, the deposit could cover around four to five percent of Poland’s annual oil demand. The field could also reduce Poland’s dependence on energy imports and strengthen the country’s security of supply. That language of “security” always arrives polished and official, while the actual business is extraction, dependence and the steady conversion of sea into fuel.
Brussels, Berlin and the drill bit
In Świnoujście, concern is growing about tourism and the environment, with authorities and residents insisting that the region’s appeal be preserved and nature protected. The prospect of extracting fossil fuels has met particularly strong resistance from Germany. BUND, the German Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, has joined forces with Deutsche Umwelthilfe, WWF and the citizens’ initiative Lebensraum Vorpommern in an alliance calling for a general ban on new oil and gas projects in the Baltic Sea.
The organisers said some 88,000 signatures had been collected by the end of July this year. The petition is due to be submitted to the European Commission in Brussels in September. That’s the familiar ritual: people gather signatures, institutions receive them, and the machinery of extraction keeps its options open. The Brussels apparatus gets another petition. The coast gets another threat.
Sascha Müller-Kraenner, DUH’s federal managing director, called for joint action by the federal government, the state and the EU to protect the Bay of Pomerania and the Baltic Sea as a whole. He said: “So far, the exploratory well has not led to an authorised production project, and that must remain the case. The federal government, the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania state government and the European Union must jointly send a clear message: there must be no new oil and gas extraction directly off Usedom.
Just weeks before the state election, the political parties in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania must also take a clear position and explain how they intend to protect the coast from a new fossil industrial project.” The sentence is neat enough. The reality is less elegant. One layer of authority points to another, and the people below are told to trust the chain.
The electoral circus and the fossil machine
The article said the upcoming state election could play a decisive role in shaping how the conflict develops between Poland’s energy interests and German environmental organisations’ calls for stronger protection for the Baltic Sea. That’s the electoral trap in plain view. Votes are counted, positions are announced, and the drill bit waits for the right legal weather.
The organisations warn of potential damage to the Baltic’s fragile ecosystem, including underwater noise, pollutant discharges and the risk of an oil spill in protected marine areas. Those are not abstract risks. They’re the ordinary costs of turning a sea into a reserve for capital, with governments and corporations arguing over who gets the revenue and who gets the damage.
What’s left is a familiar European arrangement: a Canadian company, Polish geological authorities, German environmental groups, a petition headed for Brussels, and a coastline asked to absorb the consequences. The language changes. The hierarchy doesn’t.