Poland, which sits on the eastern flank of both the EU and NATO, is the biggest beneficiary of the European loan programme for defence – Copyright AFP Wojtek RADWANSKI<\/p>\n
Poland on Friday became the first country to sign a loan agreement with the European Commission to fund the modernisation of its military and arms industry, under which it will receive nearly 44 billion euros ($52 billion).\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a watershed moment in the history of both Poland and the European Union,\u201d Prime Minister Donald Tusk said at a signing ceremony for the agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cPoland will be safer in these difficult and highly risky times,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 43.7 billion euros will go to the most populated country on NATO\u2019s eastern flank, that has become the alliance\u2019s largest spender in relative terms, allocating 4.8 percent of its GDP to defence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme makes some 150 billion euros available in preferential loans to finance joint projects in defence, the purchase of weapons or ammunition, and for the development of critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Poland is by far the greatest beneficiary of the programme, which was developed for European countries seeking to reinvigorate their defence industry to face the threat from Russia and the risk of US disengagement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also the day when Europe \u2026 is showing that it has learned a lesson from history and that it is ready \u2026 to shoulder a much greater responsibility for our security,\u201d Tusk said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agreement was signed by the Polish finance and defence ministers, as well as EU budget commissioner Piotr Serafin and defence commissioner Andrius Kubilius.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As Poland borders Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, it has been building part of the EU\u2019s and NATO\u2019s \u201ceastern shield\u201d.<\/p>\n
With the loan, Poland also hopes to boost local industry \u2014 89 percent of the contracts Poland\u2019s money will go to Polish companies.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have the Polish defence industry everywhere \u2026 we have plants everywhere \u2026 we want to produce equipment everywhere\u2026 for the modernisation of the Polish army,\u201d Polish finance minister Andrzej Domanski said at the ceremony.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2013 Overcame opposition \u2013<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s signing ended months of political debate in Warsaw pitting the pro-European government against the right-wing nationalist opposition and President Karol Nawrocki.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In March, Nawrocki vetoed a government measure allocating SAFE funds, leading Tusk\u2019s government to ensure SAFE funding made its way to Poland under more complex arrangements.<\/p>\n
Hostile to Brussels, Nawrocki and the opposition argued that SAFE would alienate a key Polish ally in Washington by prioritising European arms purchases at the expense of US suppliers, and make Poland dependent on Germany and the EU.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Rather than back the SAFE proposal, Nawrocki insisted on his own alternative, \u201cSAFE 0%\u201d, drawn up with right-wing ally central bank governor Adam Glapinski.<\/p>\n
Described as a \u201csovereign\u201d alternative to the European loans, the programme would instead use central bank funds. Tusk\u2019s government labelled the initiative \u201cunrealistic\u201d as the central bank faces financial losses.<\/p>\n
\u201cCooperation and action for security has no party colours, no political emotions, no worldviews or opinions,\u201d defence minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said at the signing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is something we have been called to do,\u201d he added.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Poland, which sits on the eastern flank of both the EU and NATO, is the biggest beneficiary of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[210,4570,455,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-5569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-poland","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-loans","10":"tag-military","11":"tag-poland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5569","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=5569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}