Polish SAFE: Nawrocki’s Sovereignist Countermove

For several weeks, one issue has dominated Polish politics: the government’s decision to embrace the EU’s SAFE instrument—Security Action for Europe—to finance a new wave of military purchases. SAFE is a €150 billion EU facility offering long-maturity loans for defence procurement; if accepted, Poland could become its crucial beneficiary, with access to €43.7 billion (around 188 billion PLN). Donald Tusk and his cabinet have presented this as a strategic breakthrough and a must-have opportunity: cheap financing for urgent rearmament and a simultaneous boost to domestic industry. Officials have argued that more than 80% of the money would ultimately stay in Poland, with some government estimates going as high as 89%.

The financial terms indeed seem attractive by current European standards. Poland would receive up to 15% in pre-financing (about €6.5 billion) at 3.17% interest on exceptionally long maturities. For a government under pressure to modernise the armed forces quickly, those are not trivial advantages.

However, the programme became politically explosive very quickly, as conservative opposition raised doubts concerning a few important aspects of SAFE. First, conservatives argue that SAFE embeds a political lever in defence funding: disbursements depend on periodic progress reports assessed by the Commission, which can suspend instalments if a report is deemed unsatisfactory. In a country still sensitive to earlier clashes with Brussels over withheld EU funds, any mechanism that turns military modernisation into a file reviewed in the Berlaymont triggers mistrust (especially for the formerly ruling Law and Justice party). Second, it is argued that SAFE’s European procurement logic is too restrictive for a country whose rearmament has heavily relied on American and South Korean suppliers. Third, conservatives warn that the time outlined in the project to sign specific procurement contracts between state agencies and military industry companies falls at the end of May—such a short time span and a resulting haste would make it harder to secure crucial details of the contracts and align purchases with a coherent military strategy. Fourth, conservatives see the mechanism as another step toward deeper fiscal and strategic dependence on Brussels.

Before the end of February, legislation allowing BGK (the state development bank) to operate the mechanism for the funds was approved by the Polish parliament and received by the president. Karol Nawrocki has to make a decision concerning the bill (and thereafter, Polish participation in the SAFE programme) by March 20, but he faces a particularly difficult dilemma. A signature would hand the government a major political success in the crucial field of Polish security and would drive a wedge between the president and his conservative political base, which calls for rejecting the bill. A veto, by contrast, would be unpopular, as a majority of Poles (including general staff of the army) support the act, seeing in it a welcome chance to facilitate the urgent military modernisation process—even though the president is not able to entirely eliminate access to SAFE but only significantly reduce the size of Polish participation in the programme. 

It is exactly this context that Donald Tusk and a liberal government seek to exploit, preparing a rhetorical offensive in case of a presidential veto. Radosław Sikorski, Polish minister of foreign affairs and deputy prime minister, has already claimed that rejecting SAFE would constitute a dereliction of the presidential role as commander-in-chief. Such criticism would not be the first instance of a political attack on the president, but this time, given the attitude of the public, it could actually have an effect. 

Either way, Tusk benefits: a signature is a government trophy, while a veto lets liberals frame Nawrocki as obstructing security—an argument designed to dominate the run-up to parliamentary elections in 2027.

It appears that despite the challenge, Karol Nawrocki has found a political way out. In a press conference organised last Wednesday together with Adam Glapiński, the president of the National Bank of Poland (NBP), he has proposed a “Polish, detailed, safe and sovereign alternative”—‘Polish SAFE 0%’—an equally momentous programme that would be financed completely with the use of Polish national resources and remain interest-free and debt-free. Nawrocki argued that this domestic mechanism—even if legally complex—would address all shortcomings of European SAFE, allowing Warsaw to independently spend on whatever the armed forces need most—including, potentially, purchases from the United States. 

How do Nawrocki and Glapiński want to secure such massive funds for the alternative Polish SAFE programme? The answer lies in Polish gold reserves, which not only have risen in value (due to global increases in gold prices) but, most importantly, due to consistent large-scale purchases by Adam Glapiński, who throughout the last few years has more than quadrupled national gold reserves. 

Details of the presidential plan were published a day later. As explained by Leszek Skiba, the presidential financial advisor, there are two possible paths for securing Polish SAFE 0 with respect for the constitutionally sensitive nature of NBP functioning: the first one assumes a recalculation of massive gold reserves according to contemporary prices; a resulting profit (even if paper-based) could then be transferred from NBP directly to the Armed Forces Support Fund. Alternatively, a tranche of gold could be sold on the global market and then immediately bought back using NBP foreign exchange reserves, leaving the consequent cash flow to use for the Polish SAFE programme. 

The proposal quickly shifted the pressure onto Tusk, re-mobilised conservatives around the problem, and even drew praise from some centre-left figures like former finance minister Grzegorz Kołodko. In this way, Nawrocki seems to have evaded a political trap and regained initiative on the matter, calling for non-partisan agreement to quickly implement necessary legal changes to allow the swift introduction of Polish SAFE as an all-round better alternative. On the other hand, critics (like liberal commentators or Sławomir Mentzen, leader of the Confederacy party and a fierce rival of Law and Justice) reply that ‘0%’ is just a convenient political branding, since the cost is shifted onto central bank balance sheet mechanics and future profit transfers, raising legal and macroeconomic questions.

Prevalent political reception of the proposal was, however, positive, as most parties on all sides of the political spectrum did not dare to criticise the idea but instead suggested adopting both SAFE programmes as complementary measures, using Polish SAFE to build up to 8 nuclear power plants (and addressing the creeping crisis in energy infrastructure) or reversing the decline of public healthcare. Donald Tusk himself belongs to the first category. In his first reaction, he suggested readiness for negotiating support for any legislative presidential initiatives but at the same time emphasised the absolute necessity of the president signing the European SAFE Act. 

The situation develops quickly, as just before the end of last week, Karol Nawrocki invited Adam Glapiński, Prime Minister Tusk and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz to a meeting in the presidential palace on Tuesday, March 11, to discuss the details of SAFE 0 legislation just before the next session of parliament. 

As Nawrocki retakes the initiative and makes the most of the remaining time before making a final the decision on the EU SAFE Act, the next two weeks will decide the future of sovereign and European-integrated armament projects, but even more importantly—reshape the position and agency of the Polish president and prime minister in managing the security of the country.