Duda wants French nuclear shield and US nuclear weapons for Poland
Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, has told Bloomberg that Poland should seek both the protection of France’s nuclear deterrent as well as access to US atomic weapons as part of the Nuclear Sharing programme.
"I believe we can accept both solutions," Duda said in an interview published on Friday, adding that "these two ideas are neither contradictory nor mutually exclusive."
In March, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that "the nuclear umbrella" should be widened to cover Poland, and that talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on the use of French atomic weapons for the defence of European allies were under way.
According to Bloomberg, Poland's striving to have nuclear weapons supplements an ambitious armaments programme, now being implemented by Warsaw. Poland spends 4.7 percent of GDP on defence and has received EU's financial support for the strengthening of its border with Belarus and the Russian Kaliningrad enclave.
The Nuclear Sharing programme provides for the possibility for a US ally to host American nuclear weapons on its territory.
Duda also said that NATO's role was to oppose Russia's aggressive actions and recalled that Russia had installed tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus in 2023. According to Duda, NATO should respond by means of widening the nuclear sharing also to cover Poland.
With around 300 nuclear warheads, France is the only EU member country to possess such weapons, and one of three NATO members along with the US and the UK. (PAP)
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