Polish nationalist president Karol Nawrocki has proposed that Germany fund Poland’s defense as a form of World War II reparations, rather than relying on EU loans. A day after vetoing legislation to access nearly €44 billion in EU defense loans under the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative, Nawrocki told constituents:
If they are really committed to the development of the Polish armed forces, and the whole EU is, then we can begin this process with German investment, with funds from the German state budget for equipment for the Polish army and for NATO’s eastern flank. That is fair.
“Germany will pay us war reparations, and let’s invest these funds in security,” he said, framing the compensation as just reparations for World War II—an issue he frequently brought up during his presidential campaign.
Nawrocki spent considerable time talking about the SAFE loans for the first time after his veto and explaining his reasoning:
Incurring a commitment until 2070 is too serious a commitment. To sign such a loan without knowing what the currency risk will look like in the coming years, what the European Union will look like … is very difficult to accept from a constitutional, systemic, and also logical perspective … therefore there could only be one decision.
Decisions regarding Polish security are the decisions of the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, not Brussels
In German eyes, the issue of WWII reparations is settled after a 1953 agreement in which Poland’s then-communist government waived further claims. Berlin has shown openness to limited alternative compensation but rejects both direct payments and the €1.3 trillion figure advanced by Poland under the previous Law and Justice (PiS) governments, which Nawrocki has referenced as a benchmark.
Nawrocki’s veto has heightened tensions with Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Europhile government, which criticized the move as harmful to national interests. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski called the president a “coward” and “liar,” accusing him of prioritizing ties to opposition leader Jarosław Kaczyński and the conservative PiS party, which supported Nawrocki’s campaign.
The Tusk government has mentioned a “Plan B” to secure defense funding, possibly via decrees bypassing presidential approval, but has not revealed any details about it.
Nawrocki has long pushed reparations-linked ideas, including during meetings with the German president, arguing they benefit shared European and NATO security. In his Friday speech, he also appealed to the speaker of parliament to bring his “SAFE 0%” project up for discussion by members as soon as possible.
