Poland mulls using some of SAFE funds to invest in arms industry - report
Poland is considering using a portion of the funds it will receive under the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) loan programme to invest in its domestic arms industry and boost production capacity, a Polish daily Rzeczpospolita has reported.
In early September, Poland's Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz announced that the country would receive EUR 43.7 billion for military equipment and ammunition through the SAFE financial instrument to boost the key capabilities of the Polish armed forces. The original plan envisaged that the entire sum — repayable over 45 years, with interest due only in the first 10 — would be transferred to the Armed Forces Support Fund to finance the purchase and modernisation of weapons.
But on Thursday, Rzeczpospolita reported that Poland's Ministry of State Assets (MAP) sought changes to internal regulations, that currently restrict the use of SAFE funds solely for arms purchases, to allow some of the money to be invested in domestic arms factories.
"The MAP is developing an idea to allocate a few percent of this amount to directly increase the production capacity of the Polish defence industry," Deputy Minister of State Assets Konrad Golota told the newspaper.
"We are in talks with the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Finance and Economy about amending legal regulations so that some of these funds can be allocated for direct investment in (defence - PAP) sector, he said.
Golota further argued that if competitive major European arms companies invest additionally using money from the SAFE instrument, while Poland only uses it for the purchase of weapons, "an investment gap will arise we will never be able to close."
"This approach aligns with the core goal of the SAFE instrument — to rapidly increase the production capacity of the European defence industry," Rzeczpospolita wrote. (PAP)
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