Brussels approves Poland's use of post-COVID funds for defence

Published on 27/05/2025 - 18:04 GMT+2

The European Commission connected Tuesday permitted Poland to repurpose astir €6 cardinal successful post-COVID costs to finance defence projects, erstwhile nan assemblage of commissioners endorsed nan Polish petition by written procedure.

"Poland will beryllium nan first to put billions from nan KPO (National Recovery Plan) successful information and defence. Successful negotiations paved nan way, now different countries are trying to travel successful our footsteps," Jan Szyszko, nan country's caput of authorities successful nan ministry of costs and location policy, wrote connected X pursuing nan Commission's decision.

Warsaw was allocated astir €60bn - of which 25.3 cardinal are grants - of nan Commission's €650 cardinal scheme Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) aimed astatine kickstarting COVID-stricken economies crossed nan EU.

But nan facility, which came into unit successful early 2021, came pinch strings attached.

The funds, doled retired successful some grants and loans, had to beryllium poured into sectors and initiatives aimed astatine making nan bloc's system much resilient, sustainable, green, and digital; personnel states had to taxable National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) outlining reforms and investments; nan money had to beryllium spent by nan extremity of 2026.

The costs nevertheless proved difficult for immoderate personnel states to digest pinch bureaucratic bottlenecks, shifting governmental priorities, and precocious ostentation further slowing nan process.

Member states were nevertheless allowed to taxable revised plans, which is what Poland did connected 30 January, successful which it projected nan preamble of a caller measurement to create an Investment-Equity injection into nan Security and Defence Fund.

The Commission endorsed nan measure, pinch a spokesperson telling Euronews that defence-related activities tin align pinch nan instrument's nonsubjective of promoting sustainable maturation and enhancing nan resilience of personnel states provided they do not break nan limitations outlined successful Article 41(2) of nan Treaty connected nan European Union.

Article 41 regulates nan financing of nan Common Foreign and Security Policy, which includes nan Union’s defence policy. Paragraph 2 stipulates that expenditures resulting from measures pinch subject aliases defence implications are expressly excluded from financing from nan EU's budget.

"RRF support for nan defence assemblage whitethorn see financing nan description of business capacity, nan technological improvement of defence products, arsenic good arsenic investments that service some civilian and subject purposes, specified arsenic carrier infrastructure," nan Commission spokesperson besides said.

Defence has go a cardinal privilege for nan EU pursuing Russia's full-scale penetration of Ukraine which starkly highlighted nan deficiencies and limitations of nan European defence business guidelines and nan glaring gaps successful nan bloc's subject capabilities.

The Commission has put guardant a scheme to unlock hundreds of billions of euros into nan defence assemblage to capable those gaps and turbocharge European defence manufacturing. The main financial firepowers of this 'Readiness 2030' scheme reside successful much fiscal elasticity for personnel states and Commission-issued loans for defence projects.

But nan EU executive is besides backing repurposing costs from different EU programmes, specified arsenic cohesion funds, which purpose to trim economical and societal disparities crossed nan 27 personnel states.

Meanwhile NATO allies, of which 23 are EU personnel states, are presently negotiating a revision to nan alliance's defence spending target, presently group astatine 2% of GDP. Washington has called for a 5% target.