Former defence minister warns the SAFE programme prioritises EU industry, leaving only modest room for Poland to fund joint projects with Ukraine.<\/p>\n
According to former Defense Minister Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Poland will have limited opportunities to use funds from the European SAFE program for joint defense projects with Ukraine. He expressed this position in an interview, emphasizing that the text reflects his view of the situation.<\/p>\n
Nature of SAFE funds usage<\/p>\n
According to him, the space for using the funds is relatively narrow, as SAFE is focused on revitalizing and developing the European defense industry.<\/p>\n
Opportunities for collaboration and using these funds with other countries are limited, although there is some possibility regarding the United Kingdom and Ukraine. However, these would concern relatively small shares of the funds Poland will receive under SAFE.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Janusz Onyszkiewicz<\/p>\n
Position on NATO, EU, and aid to Ukraine<\/p>\n
Onyszkiewicz emphasized that Poland generally supports NATO and EU policies on aid to Ukraine, but must take into account its own financial capabilities.<\/p>\n
Poland generally supports a range of NATO and EU actions, including financial support for Ukraine. However, we are currently under immense financial pressure due to large-scale modernization projects of the Polish army and arms purchases.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Onyszkiewicz<\/p>\n
In his view, this explains the caution of the Polish authorities regarding new financial obligations toward Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Finding additional funds beyond those already declared within NATO or the EU can be very difficult. Hence the caution in such declarations.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Onyszkiewicz<\/p>\n
The former minister also noted that this position is influenced by internal political dynamics in the country.<\/p>\n
We must remember that we have a rather uncomfortable internal political situation regarding attitudes toward the war in Ukraine and aid to Kyiv, a painful example of which are the remarks by the well-known politician Przemys\u0142aw Charnek.<\/p>\n
\u2013 Onyszkiewicz<\/p>\n
It is also known that Poland continues negotiations with Ukraine regarding the transfer of modern drone technologies within the European SAFE mechanism.<\/p>\n
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara, stated that the country would refrain from new declarations of financial support to Ukraine, given Poland\u2019s special role in defending the Alliance\u2019s eastern flank.<\/p>\n
The leader of the most popular opposition party Law and Justice (PiS) Jaros\u0142aw Kaczy\u0144ski distanced himself from calls by one of his deputies Przemys\u0142aw Charnek to suspend funding for weapons and reconstruction in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
In summary, Poland\u2019s position on participating in joint defense projects with Ukraine is constrained by limited finances and internal political dynamics, but the country remains ready to support Ukraine within the available capabilities and existing defense cooperation mechanisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former defence minister warns the SAFE programme prioritises EU industry, leaving only modest room for Poland to fund…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[11495,7240,11491,101,9,11496,11494],"class_list":["post-17618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-defence-cooperation-ukraine","tag-eu-defence-industry","tag-janusz-onyszkiewicz","tag-news","tag-poland","tag-poland-safe-funds","tag-poland-safe-fundsdefence-cooperation-ukrainejanusz-onyszkiewiczeu-defence-industry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17618","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=17618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}