Cezary Tomczyk criticised president Karol Nawrocki on August 15 for his words about the SAFE programme during the Polish Army Festival. Vice-President MON considered them an abuse and accused the president of hitting the government. The stakes are not rhetoric, but control over the money for the reinforcements and sovereignty of decisions.
Acute post-defilade reaction
Cezary Tomczyk, Deputy Minister of National Defence, responded sharply to the message by president Karol Nawrocki about the SAFE programme during the Polish Army Festival. According to Virtual Poland, the politician considered the words of the head of state to be an abuse and criticized the combination of military celebrations with the current political dispute.
According to media coverage, Tomczyk accused Nawrock of hitting the government and Europe on Christmas Day alternatively of focusing on the army. However, Sam utilized a very strong language for the head of the Armed Forces. This shows that the conflict around SAFE went beyond the method dispute over funding. It became a fight for the political right to tell Poles who truly strengthened the military.
SAFE is simply a loan, not a free treasure
SAFE has a immense dimension for Poland. The European Commission has informed that Poland is the largest recipient of the instrument and has a pool allocated 43.7 billion EUR, with first payment 6.6 billion EUR. The MON previously stated that the applications of the associate States in the SAFE programme amounted to a full of EUR 150 billion, and Polish measures are to go to air defence, artillery, ammunition, drones and anti-drone systems.
It's serious money. However, we request to be clear: it is simply a debt and EU instrument, not a sack of unconditional cash falling from the sky. Poland can benefit from it, but it must guarantee that orders, technology and executive decisions are strengthened by Polish industry, not only by another people's plants and another industrial policies.
Military Day is not a decoration for Brussels
That's why the dispute is important. The government wants to present SAFE as proof of the effectiveness of the European course. The president raises the issue of sovereignty and warns against a situation where Poland's safety will be packed in Brussels procedures. We've already written about these tensions in the text. Festival of the Polish Army. SAFE cannot cover Polish sovereignty.
The Polish Army Day should be a day of soldiers, memory of 1920 and seriousness of the state. If politicians turn him into a ring, they lower the Christmas. But we must not pretend that defence money is beyond politics. The funder usually tries to influence. The Polish right hand has a work to look at specified mechanisms without naivety.
The Polish effect counts
In Tomczyk's dispute with Nawrocki, it is not adequate to ask who hit his opponent harder. The more serious question is: how much of these funds will stay in Poland, how many orders will go to national companies and whether the army will get equipment erstwhile needed, alternatively than after years of procedures.
Before we described that Nawrocki answered Tusk with the motto God, Honor and Homeland, not SAFE. This dispute makes sense only erstwhile it leads to tough decisions: production in Poland, real air defense, ammunition, drones, anti-drone systems and state control of its own safety.
Poles do not request another war of press conferences. They request an army that works. And a power that remembers that no Brussels programme will replace its own industry, its own strategy and its own responsibility.
Source: Virtual Poland, European Commission, Ministry of National Defence.
Source: WP News
