Polish rearmament plan banks on US weapons bought with EU backing

WARSAW, Poland — Poland is seeking new joint ventures and purchases from American defense contractors that could be financed by European loans, according to Konrad Gołota, Poland’s deputy state assets minister.

Warsaw plans to expand its armed forces following Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine. The growing Polish defense budget is already fueling a shopping spree for weapons and gear, including acquisitions of fighter jets , tanks , helicopters , rocket launchers and missiles from the United States.

“We are modernizing our Army. We are building now the biggest EU land Army, focusing on the protection of external borders, focusing very much on securing the Baltic Sea region,” Gołota said during an Dec. 5 event hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank in Washington.

Money for new military acquisitions will be sourced from the country’s defense budget which is to absorb additional funds of roughly €44 billion ($51 billion) in low-cost loans under the European Union’s Security Action For Europe (SAFE) scheme, recently allocated by Brussels.

Poland’s defense expenditure “next year will be 4.7% of GDP, it will be around $55 billion,” the deputy minister said.

Gołota said the Polish government wants to involve U.S. producers in additional procurements of weapons and equipment that could be bankrolled by SAFE loans.

However, Warsaw hopes to go beyond buying off-the-shelf products. Poland is planning to use the funds to finance more joint ventures and transfers of technology from American players to the Polish defense industry with the use of European loans.

“We are using a lot of American equipment,” according to Gołota. “We have spent over the years in signed contracts $60 billion in the U.S. … only in defense. So it’s a substantial expenditure. We think that the perfect matching is … when your companies, which are already cooperating with our companies, will take it one or two levels higher.”

U.S. defense industry players “need to decide which technologies they are able to transfer, and, of course, we are in dialog with the [U.S.] administration,” Gołota said.

Jaroslaw Adamowski is the Poland correspondent for Defense News.

波兰华沙——波兰国家资产部副部长康拉德·戈沃塔表示，波兰正在寻求与美国国防承包商建立新的合资企业和采购关系，这些合作和采购可以通过欧洲贷款来筹集资金。

在俄罗斯入侵邻国乌克兰之后，华沙计划扩充其武装力量。不断增长的波兰国防预算已经开始推动其疯狂采购武器装备，包括从美国购买战斗机、坦克、直升机、火箭发射器和导弹。

“我们正在对军队进行现代化改造。我们正在打造欧盟最大的陆军，重点是保护外部边界，尤其注重波罗的海地区的安全，”戈沃塔在12月5日由华盛顿战略与国际研究中心智库主办的活动上表示。

新军购置的资金将来自该国的国防预算，该预算将吸收欧盟“欧洲安全行动”（SAFE）计划下约 440 亿欧元（510 亿美元）的额外低成本贷款资金，这笔资金是布鲁塞尔最近拨款的。

波兰副部长表示，波兰明年的国防开支“将占GDP的4.7%，约为550亿美元”。

戈沃塔表示，波兰政府希望让美国生产商参与更多武器和装备的采购，这些采购可以通过SAFE贷款来资助。

然而，华沙希望的不仅仅是购买现成产品。波兰计划利用这笔资金，通过欧洲贷款，资助更多合资企业，并促成美国企业向波兰国防工业的技术转让。

戈沃塔表示：“我们使用了大量美国设备。多年来，我们在美国签署的合同总额已达600亿美元……这仅仅是国防开支。这是一笔巨额支出。我们认为，最理想的合作方式是……当贵公司（目前已与我们公司开展合作）将合作提升一到两个层次时。”

戈沃塔表示，美国国防工业参与者“需要决定他们能够转让哪些技术，当然，我们正在与（美国）政府进行对话”。

Jaroslaw Adamowski 是《防务新闻》驻波兰记者。