Poland‘s nationalist President Karol Nawrocki has vetoed a law accepting EU loans for military buildup. “Poland’s security must not depend on foreign decisions,” said Nawrocki, justifying his decision. The law in question had previously been passed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s center-left coalition and was intended to allow Poland to benefit from the EU to take out loans totaling 44 billion euros in order to modernize and upgrade its military. “The president has missed an opportunity to behave like a patriot,” Tusk criticized Nawrocki’s veto on X.
As part of the so-called Safe program (Security Action for Europe), the EU is offering cheap loans totaling 150 billion euros to its member states to help them finance increased defense spending in order to arm themselves against a more aggressive Russia. Poland should get the biggest loan. According to the Ministry of Defense’s plans, the Eastern European country wanted to use the money to buy defensive weapons against drones and missiles, as well as helicopters and boats. Tusk According to him, a large part of the money would flow into orders for Polish defense companies. Poland is the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank and neighbor of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.
“We are being proposed a Poland under German boots”
Nawrocki is supported by the national conservative PiS party. PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński has been campaigning against the EU’s Safe program for weeks and is spreading an anti-German narrative. According to him, the arms program is part of a plan to bring the EU closer together under German dominance. Kaczyński claimed that the main beneficiaries should be German arms companies. “We are being proposed a Poland under the German boot, and we reject this German boot,” said the right-wing opposition leader.
To finance Poland’s rearmament, brought Nawrocki Recently, together with the head of the National Bank, Adam Glapiński, an alternative proposal was put into play. This stipulates that an armaments program of somewhat the same size should be financed interest-free from the National Bank’s foreign exchange and gold reserves. Financial experts warn about the risks, and Prime Minister Tusk has already made it clear that his government will not support Nawrocki’s proposal.
