Polish parliament okays EU defence loan, but president could veto

Opposition fears EU conditions could limit arms purchases from the US

Poland's parliament on Friday passed a law creating a mechanism to spend 43.7 billion euros ($51.6 billion) in European Union loans to boost the military, setting up a dilemma for the nationalist president, whose backers want him to veto it.

Warsaw was the biggest beneficiary of the EU's 150-billion-euro Security Action for Europe (SAFE) initiative to boost the continent's armed forces, but the programme has been hotly debated in Poland as nationalists oppose Brussels getting involved in defence.

The nationalist opposition party Law and Justice (PiS), which backs President Karol Nawrocki, says SAFE would limit arms purchases from Warsaw's most important ally, the US, and that it will come with conditions purportedly intended to allow German meddling in Polish affairs.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk's pro-European coalition government says the funds have no such strings attached and that the cheap financing provided by SAFE is essential to Poland's security in the face of what it says is a rising threat from Russia.

"Without the SAFE programme, we have no other option to build an even stronger army and have better-equipped and safer soldiers in such a short time," Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz told a press conference.

The bill will enable the state development bank BGK to operate a fund that disburses the cash. The government says if Nawrocki vetoes the law, some workarounds are available, but it will not be able to use SAFE to its full potential.

"The losses will be very significant," Tusk said on Thursday.

Nawrocki has declined to say what he will do.

"This issue is so important to the Polish state and evokes so many emotions that I won't say what decision I'll make," he said on Thursday. "We'll make a decision when the time is right."