The recent blow to Poland’s fragile foreign policy consensus came as a surprise. On March 13, President Karol Nawrocki vetoed a law implementing the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) rearmament program in Poland, a €150 billion vehicle of cheap loans for European Union member states to finance defense projects. Warsaw was meant to be the main beneficiary of SAFE. The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk hailed it as its major EU policy success.
What seemed to be a safe bet for the government and a clear win for the country, however, became subject to a fierce domestic political fight. It would be a mistake, though, to see the controversy as yet another battle motivated by the well-known personal grievances and political rivalry between the right-wing president, who is supported by the nationalist-populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, and the centrist government, with Tusk’s center-right Civic Platform the main coalition partner. Its roots run much deeper. At stake is nothing less than Poland’s foreign policy orientation and the country’s membership of the EU.
A Spectacular Achievement
Set up during the Polish EU presidency in 2025, SAFE was indeed a spectacular achievement. For the first time the EU—originally conceived as a peace project while (Western) Europeans outsourced their security to the United States—pulled its weight to support its member states’ rearmament efforts with cheap loans, backed by the EU budget.
And Poland, a country at the Europe’s eastern frontline neighboring Russia, became the scheme’s main beneficiary. €43 billion was allocated to 139 procurement projects proposed by the Polish army and government. On the top of that, upon Warsaw’s insistence, the EU included a special clause to foster intra-EU cooperation. Procurement projects involving only a single state were time-limited; in principle, at least two participating countries are required to qualify for SAFE financing. In Poland’s case, however, 80 percent of its SAFE funding was supposed to go to the Polish defense industry.
European allies were raising their eyebrows and complained about Warsaw allegedly acting against the spirit of a program designed to promote European cooperation. To no avail. Concrete benefits for the domestic industrial base were supposed to become the icing on the cake of the Tusk government’s great success.
While Poland’s access to SAFE may have thus looked like a no-brainer, it suddenly met a strong backlash from PiS and President Nawrocki. They questioned the financial rationale for Poland to take EU loans (although its interest rates are 2-3 percentage points lower than the national debt) and claimed—falsely—that SAFE money could only be spent on equipment produced in Europe, thus limiting Poland’s options (in fact, 35 percent of the money is not bound by the buy-European clause).
But the greatest fury was directed at the EU itself. The critics depicted SAFE as a tool to subordinate Poland to Brussels’ federalist fantasies; it was denounced as an instrument of German hegemony and the result of a conspiracy of Western European (again, mostly German) industrial circles. They pointed to the general rules of conditionality of the EU money (applicable also for the payments from the regular EU budget) as an unacceptable impediment to Poland’s sovereignty. Tusk, who proudly presented SAFE as an example of Poland’s influence in the EU, was denounced as a traitor who wanted to sell off Poland’s vital interests for a couple of “German silver coins.” In a public statement livestreamed on television, Nawrocki declared that he would never sign off on anything that would threaten Poland’s independence and sovereignty.
Nawrocki’s veto against the SAFE implementation law will not stop the government from taking the EU loan; the president does not have the constitutional powers to do so. It will only make the spending more complicated and restricted. What really matters is the radical anti-EU turn adopted by the Polish right-wing opposition. PiS and the far right have decided to make the question of the EU integration and Poland’s sovereignty the central topic of the political competition.
This is unprecedented and dangerous.
The former PiS minister for EU affairs, Konrad Szymanski, who left government in 2022 after seven years in office, warns that Poland has embarked on a path toward “Polexit.” This is no exaggeration even if such a scenario is only one of many. Despite Poland’s enormous success as a member of the EU, the number of those advocating leaving the EU has risen in recent years, to 25 percent. Among PiS voters the number is close to 50 percent.
The party of the radical anti-Semite and open advocate of Polexit, Grzegorz Braun, the Confederation of the Polish Crown (KPP), is polling at 10 percent, undermining PiS’ electoral base. It is the attempt to appeal to these voters and win them back that is pushing PiS—still the largest opposition party—to radicalize its anti-European positions. At a recent party congress, PiS nominated its “lead candidate” for the 2027 general election. Przemysław Czarnek, the party’s new face, is a hardliner, MAGA supporter, and perfectly aligned with the Trumpian anti-EU shift that PiS is now undertaking. His first initiative: an ultimatum pressing the government to announce Poland’s exit from the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a key element of the EU’s climate and green transformation policies.
Mobilizing Emotions
The Polish right has realized that at times of crisis, with wars raging in Ukraine and Iran, and general uncertainty, people’s emotions can be easily mobilized by invoking security and sovereignty as well as demonstrating agency. US President Donald Trump’s ruthless political style serves as both inspiration and encouragement.
Making the attitude to the EU the central political cleavage might appear a risky bet in a country that has been long known for its pro-Europeanism. Sadly, it may well work. A majority of Poles still support SAFE, but PiS propaganda has also born fruit: A plurality of citizens have bought into the narrative that the Germans would benefit more from the program than the Poles. The campaign against the EU’s ETS as the killer of Poland’s industry is likely to be even more successful. In a country that belongs to the 20 richest economies of the world, the argument of the “manna from Brussels” as the legitimization for EU integration is becoming less and less convincing.
That the EU stands for security is not obvious in a country that long associated security only with America. The right is on the threshold of gaining the upper hand in the debate about the EU, pushing the country further down a slippery political slope. The centrists are realizing slowly but surely that they need to fight back, as demonstrated by the recent address to the parliament by Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski. One thing is certain: The SAFE debate is only the overture to a decisive battle for Poland’s future.
Piotr Buras is IPQ’s Warsaw columnist and heads the European Council on Foreign Relations’ (ECFR) Warsaw office.
