WARSAW (Reuters) – Defence will remain a top budget priority for Poland, Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said on Friday, urging European Union countries to back a Polish proposal that would let them hike military spending without breaking the bloc’s fiscal rules.
The war in Ukraine prompted neighbouring Poland to modernise its army, boost weapons purchases, and it has allocated 4.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) to defence expenditure this year – one of the highest levels in NATO.
“The budget, and above all defence spending, was, is and will be our priority. In fact, they define all our other investments, because these other investments only make sense when Poland is safe,” Domanski said in a radio interview.
Domanski also urged other EU countries to increase their defence spending.
On Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called for the quick adoption of new fiscal rules to fund improved European defence efforts and urged the EU to finance aid for Ukraine using frozen Russian assets.
Domanski said that in the context of signals coming from the United States, the EU must “take more responsibility for its own security and for the situation on our continent”.
French President Emmanuel Macron hosted two meetings with European leaders earlier this week to discuss how to move faster to increase defence spending, and how to move more quickly as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration speeds up diplomacy to end the three-year-old Ukraine-Russia war.
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz; Editing by Helen Popper)
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