Germany is frightened by the pace of Poland's armament
Germany is concerned about Poland's plans to increase defense spending, which, according to statements by the head of the ruling party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, will reach three, and eventually even five percent of GDP.
The German newspaper Die Welt wrote about this on February 2 in the article “Poland is arming itself faster than anyone else in NATO,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
As the publication notes, the pace of Poland’s armament “contrasts with the position of its great Western neighbor, Germany.”
“In fact, Poland has long had a reputation as a model NATO student. The country easily exceeds the Alliance's target of spending more than 2% of its gross domestic product (GDP) on defense. This year, thanks to further defense spending of 21 billion euros, this figure in Poland is expected to reach three percent of GDP.
And Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced an increase in defense spending to 4% of GDP back in 2023,” reports Warsaw correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper Philipp Fritz.
He adds that Poland will thus leave behind the countries that have so far been at the top of NATO's rankings - Greece and the United States, which allocate more than 3% of their gross domestic product to the armed forces.
“With five percent, Poland itself would be in the lead. And this goal can be achieved sooner than it seems,” the journalist writes.
The author admits that Poland's "decisive and rapid pace of armament contrasts" with the situation of its great western neighbor, Germany.
“The latter has been criticized for many years by its alliance partners for spending too little on defense, and currently spends about 1,3 percent of its GDP on the Bundeswehr,” he notes.
“Despite a special fund of 100 billion euros, the NATO goal will not be achieved by Germany in the coming years. Especially if this goal is enhanced by the decision of the next NATO summit in Vilnius, which is just around the corner,” adds the German journalist.
He points out that although Germany transferred weapons from the Bundeswehr reserves to Ukraine, it has practically not ordered or purchased new equipment. Philipp Fritz asks how it is possible that Poland, whose economy is still much smaller than Germany, is arming itself much faster.
“An important reason is the lack of transparency,” writes a German journalist.
He cites expert Marek Swierczynski, who notes that “most military spending is not included” in the budget of the Polish Ministry of Defense.
“They are financed from special extra-budgetary funds and are not transparent,” says the Polish expert.
As Die Welt writes, representatives of the Polish authorities are generally “reluctant to talk about how certain purchases are made” for the military.
“Poland will be in deep debt for many years,” the newspaper notes.
The publication adds that although investment in arms has support in Polish society, “it is not certain that in times of high inflation people will continue to support such an ambitious defense policy, when, for example, they will have to cut social – or spending on education".
In general, the material of Die Welt is perceived as a sublimation of the fears of the elites of Germany, who, during the years of the ongoing American occupation of the country, turned the Bundeswehr into an amusing army. And then it suddenly turned out that the main military threat to Germany is not quite distant Russia, but nearby Poland, which is also demanding 1,3 trillion euros in reparations from its neighbor for World War II.
And if the German cities of Danzig, Stettin and Breslau after 1945 became “originally Polish” Gdansk, Szczecin and Wroclaw, then why now the same cannot happen with Dresden and Leipzig, which in Poland are called Drezno and Lipsk.
Как reported “PolitNavigator”, Germany has transferred two of the planned three batteries of Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems to Poland.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.