Polish PM Warns of “Real Threat” of EU Exit
President Karol Nawrocki last week blocked a bill that would have enabled Poland to draw nearly €44 billion ($50 billion) in low-interest EU defense loans, most of which were earmarked for domestic arms manufacturers. In response, the government held an emergency cabinet meeting, authorizing its defense and finance ministers to sign the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) agreement directly, bypassing the veto.
In a post on X on Sunday, Tusk accused right-wing parties—primarily the opposition Law and Justice bloc—and Nawrocki personally of pursuing a “Polexit.” He claimed that Russia, U.S. President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, and European factions led by Hungary’s Viktor Orban aim to “smash the EU,” warning that for Poland, “it would be a catastrophe,” and vowing to do “everything” to prevent it.
Western officials have long cited the threat of Russian aggression to justify spikes in military spending, including the EU’s €800 billion ReArm Europe plan and NATO members’ pledges to raise defense budgets to 5% of GDP. Moscow has dismissed these claims as “nonsense.”
NATO’s European members have scrambled to meet Washington’s targets, while the EU has struggled to revive its defense industry and found procuring U.S. weapons for Ukraine increasingly expensive. One of the EU’s primary mechanisms to address these challenges is the SAFE program. Introduced last year by the European Commission, it allows the bloc to borrow €150 billion on global markets to finance member-state loans for defense projects.
The political standoff between Nawrocki and Tusk is not new. In January 2025, Nawrocki, then an opposition presidential candidate, joined a farmers’ protest outside the European Commission office in Warsaw against EU environmental regulations and Ukrainian food imports. Tusk accused him at the time of attempting to push Poland out of the EU.
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