Poland Calls on Germany to Show Leadership With Defense Spending

(Bloomberg) — Germany should step up its defense spending to set an example for the European Union as doubts grow about US military support for Ukraine, a senior Polish defense official said. 

Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk also supports exploring new financing schemes, for example issuing joint EU debt to finance military spending, which “would allow us to buy more and be even better prepared” in the face of Russia’s growing belligerence. Berlin has opposed jointly issued debt. 

“Europe today is in a leadership crisis,” Tomczyk told Bloomberg in an interview in Warsaw. “We should demand more from the center of Europe, especially from Germany.” 

Poland’s exasperation with its western neighbor comes as Donald Trump’s return to the White House has raised fears the US will scale back military assistance for Ukraine in order to push Kyiv into a cease-fire with Russia. 

Trump has also cast doubt over his country’s support for other NATO allies unless they meet the goal of spending 2% of economic output on defense. While Warsaw remains the alliance’s top spender, the country’s massive military buildup is likely to strain its budget. 

Warsaw will commit a record 186.6 billion zloty ($46.4 billion) on defense this year, or 4.7% of gross domestic product. Germany, which remains the biggest provider of military aid to Ukraine in the EU, will spend 2.1% of output this year, or €72 billion, according to the Defense Ministry.  

“It really doesn’t happen often that the Poles tell the Germans: ‘you need to do more on arms’,” Tomczyk said. 

Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz has pledged to maintain military-spending increases after the country met the NATO benchmark for the first time. Berlin has set up a special debt-financed three-year fund worth €100 billion ($106 billion) to help cover the cost of boosting its armed forces. 

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rejected complaints that Germany has done too little, contending that his government is second only to the US in support for Ukraine. He’s vowed to steadily increase spending and called the special fund a “first step” in maintaining expenditures. 

The ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

German officials, including its foreign intelligence chief, Bruno Kahl, have warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to “test the West’s red lines” and will be prepared for a military engagement with NATO by the end of the decade. That’s one more reason to spur Berlin into action, Tomczyk said. 

“You can hear that Germany is expecting a war, that plans are being developed and that it has several years to prepare,” he said. “In such case, I would suggest that the time is up to really start preparing.”

Tomczyk is leading the government’s effort at the ministry to spend at least 10 billion zloty to reinforce Poland’s border with Belarus and Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad. Warsaw has sought EU financing for the plan, which includes building anti-tank barriers, trenches and fortifications.  

The EU’s new defense commissioner, Andrius Kubilius, last week floated a new joint borrowing mechanism for military spending as part of the bloc’s plan to seek some €500 billion for security over the next decade. 

With Russia’s war raging in Ukraine, a number of governments that had opposed joint borrowing have begun to nudge. 

Tomczyk said that joint purchases of large amounts of military equipment by EU member states could open a window of opportunity for better deals from US administration. But the decisions require urgency.

“It is absolutely necessary for the union to be a living organism that responds to threats,” he said. “It cannot be that the diagnosis of the problem takes several years and the next years are spent thinking about a solution.”

–With assistance from Arne Delfs.

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com