{"id":3447,"date":"2026-04-02T04:58:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/3447\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:58:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:58:31","slug":"eu-loans-for-weapons-scheme-gets-political-in-poland-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/3447\/","title":{"rendered":"EU loans-for-weapons scheme gets political in Poland \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>That contrasts sharply with the view of pro-EU Prime Minster Donald Tusk, who said the loans were being issued on &#8220;very favorable terms, unavailable on the market in any other way.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>SAFE provides low-interest, long-term\u00a0loans with a 10-year grace period for principal repayments, raised by Brussels on capital markets and offering significant savings compared to national borrowing.<\/p>\n<p>Those terms are crucial for Poland, which plans to devote 4.8 percent of its GDP to defense this year, one of the highest levels in NATO. The country&#8217;s public finances are under pressure due to its long-term effort to build up its military to deter Russia and support Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>But Nawrocki is wary, and his advisers warn SAFE is aimed at helping Germany rather than Poland \u2014 an appeal to Nawrocki&#8217;s core voters who are suspicious of Berlin.<\/p>\n<p>Poles deserve clarity on costs, conditions and any political strings attached to SAFE, Nawrocki said during a Wednesday meeting of Poland&#8217;s National Security Council, which he chairs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlthough SAFE formally operates as a loan mechanism, the indirect risk cannot be ignored \u2014 namely that disbursements could be linked to broader political conditionality,&#8221; the president said. &#8220;The final decision on payments and the terms attached to them will rest with the European Commission.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"That contrasts sharply with the view of pro-EU Prime Minster Donald Tusk, who said the loans were being&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136],"tags":[2039,1746,279,1428,249,402,396,248,1742,2895,347],"class_list":{"0":"post-3447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-karol-nawrocki","8":"tag-debt","9":"tag-defense-budgets","10":"tag-donald-tusk","11":"tag-european-defense","12":"tag-germany","13":"tag-karol-nawrocki","14":"tag-nato","15":"tag-poland","16":"tag-procurement","17":"tag-state-guaranteed-loans","18":"tag-war-in-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116333347092896595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}