Baltic Offshore Wind Energy Development—Poland’s Public Policy Tools Analysis and the Geostrategic Implications

A key question for European energy transition is which forms of renewable energy technologies will play a central role in this process. The recent dynamic growth in offshore wind power together with the vast wind energy potential of the European seas, including the Baltic Sea, make this technology an increasingly attractive and viable option. Considering the high installation and connection costs, government support is considered essential for the development of offshore wind power. The aim of this article is to analyze Poland’s public policy tools, which govern offshore wind farm development, and to present them from a wider geostrategic perspective. Authors identify, classify, and evaluate individual public policy tools with the use of multi-criteria and multi-dimensional methods while explaining their impact on offshore wind development in Poland. The analysis of the individual tools has shown that the currently applied tools give a high probability of achieving public policy objectives. The characteristics of the applied tools prove that vital decisions on offshore wind energy have been made concerning the need for decarbonization but also regarding wider geostrategic calculations. Given the changing security dynamics in the Baltic Sea region, we highlight potential geostrategic risks to the implementation of offshore wind projects