Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged his political opponents to stop playing \u201cpolitical games\u201d and urged the President of the Republic of Poland, Karol Nawrocki, to sign the law implementing the SAFE defense initiative.<\/p>\n
Tusk said this in a Thursday video address, reacting to the alternative SAFE initiative program announced the day before by Adam Glapi\u0144ski, head of the National Bank of Poland, and President Karol Nawrocki, according to a Ukrinform correspondent.<\/p>\n
According to Tusk, Polish companies, their workers, and Poland\u2019s security are awaiting money from the SAFE program. He said defense companies have already begun designing and producing what is to be financed by SAFE. He stressed that by May it will be possible to plan \u20bd200 billion (\u20ac44 billion) for various defense needs.<\/p>\n
Context of the SAFE discussion and Tusk\u2019s position<\/p>\n
\u201cGentlemen, there is a war going on around us. This situation demands the utmost seriousness and responsibility. There can be no talk of any political games\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Donald Tusk<\/p>\n
\u201cI received the proposal from the head of the National Bank of Poland about alternative financing by the bank for the country\u2019s defense needs with surprise.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Donald Tusk<\/p>\n
According to him, the December report from the head of the National Bank of Poland stated that this financial institution had suffered significant losses in 2024 and 2025, losses that were not ruled out in the following years.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd suddenly after a visit to the president some strange possibilities have emerged. If this is true, we expect very concrete and clear information on this matter. Because these are truly very serious questions\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Donald Tusk<\/p>\n
In this regard he put forward three demands.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst \u2013 I urge you to sign SAFE immediately. We cannot lose a single hour here. Second demand \u2013 clear information about the real financial capabilities of the National Bank of Poland and about a plan for how to use these funds\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Donald Tusk<\/p>\n
The third demand he named was the return of Poland\u2019s gold, stored in banks around the world, to Poland.<\/p>\n
\u201cI count on quick decisions and quick answers\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Donald Tusk<\/p>\n
As Ukrinform reported, President Karol Nawrocki and Adam Glapi\u0144ski, head of the National Bank of Poland, announced the launch of the \u201cPolish SAFE 0%\u201d which is to become an alternative to the EU\u2019s defense loan program.<\/p>\n
The Polish leader did not provide details of the alternative project, but stated his intention to discuss it with Prime Minister Donald Tusk and Defense Minister W\u0142adys\u0142aw Kosiniak-Kamysz.<\/p>\n
Currently Nawrocki has on his desk the law passed by the Polish parliament that implements the EU SAFE program \u2013 a program of loans for rapid investment by European countries in defense. Under the program, Poland could receive up to \u20ac43.7 billion in the form of favorable loans at interest and spend them on defense investments. However, the lending program raises doubts among the Polish opposition and the president, because it does not provide for weapons purchases from the United States, which Nawrocki and the conservative opposition regard as Poland\u2019s closest ally.<\/p>\n
At a press conference Nawrocki stated that he will not yet present his decision on the law implementing SAFE. He has 21 days to do so, starting from last Friday when the law was sent to the president by the Speaker of the Sejm, W\u0142odzimierz Czazasty.<\/p>\n
Nawrocki repeated his doubts about this program, noting that it will run until 2070. According to him, the SAFE program \u201cdoes not correspond to Article 4 of the Treaty on the European Union, where security is a competence of the member states, not the European Union itself\u201d.<\/p>\n
He added that after meeting with the head of the National Bank and \u201can analysis by experts\u201d there is no doubt that, given the stability of the development of the Polish armed forces, given financial considerations, and given legal considerations, the \u201cPolish SAFE 0%\u201d is better for the Polish armed forces than the European SAFE.<\/p>\n
In its application for SAFE funds, the Ministry of National Defence of Poland listed a total of 139 projects on which these funds are to be spent. Last week, the government presented a substantial portion of these projects, which include the most important products of Poland\u2019s defense industry, such as the Piorun air-defense systems, Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles, Krab artillery howitzers; there are also plans to purchase air-refueling tankers manufactured by the European company Airbus.<\/p>\n
Some of the projects are planned to be implemented in cooperation with European partners, as well as with Ukraine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged his political opponents to stop playing \u201cpolitical games\u201d and urged the President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9716,64,9717,9718,101,4356,9715,9719,9720],"class_list":["post-14019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-donald-tusk","tag-defense-funding-poland","tag-donald-tusk","tag-gold-repatriation-poland","tag-national-bank-finances","tag-news","tag-poland-safe-program","tag-poland-safe-program-tusk-urges-sign-safe-defense-funding-poland-national-bank-finances-gold-repatriation-poland-safe-zero-percent-debate-poland","tag-safe-zero-percent-debate-poland","tag-tusk-urges-sign-safe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}