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President Karol Nawrocki has decided to veto the bill implementing the EU’s SAFE defence loan programme. The justification for the decision points, among other things, to the risk of undermining state sovereignty and transferring part of the competences related to security to European Union institutions.
The president’s veto decision
On Friday evening, the Presidential Office published President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to veto the bill implementing the EU SAFE defence loan programme. The justification states, among other things, that the legislation would violate Poland’s sovereignty and transfer further state competences to the European Union.
The president announced the veto of the SAFE bill in a televised address on Thursday. “I will never sign a law that strikes at our sovereignty, independence, economic security, and military security,” Karol Nawrocki said.
The assumptions behind the SAFE programme
The vetoed bill provided for the creation of a Financial Security Enhancement Instrument, to be managed by Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, through which the government would be able to draw on SAFE funds — the EU instrument offering low-interest loans for the rapid strengthening of the defence capabilities of EU member states.
On Friday evening, the presidential website published both the veto decision and its full justification.
“The Act, together with the SAFE Regulation (EU – editor’s note), improperly interferes with the constitutional principle of the sovereignty of the Nation (Article 4 of the Constitution), especially in matters not conferred on the EU under the treaties and in the principle of preserving sovereignty in the process of European integration. It also interferes with civilian control over the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland and with the powers of the President of the Republic of Poland as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces,” the document states.
Dispute over competences and sovereignty
According to the justification for the veto, the bill would allow EU bodies to assume “the competences of state authorities in the form of co-decision-making on the armament and military equipment of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland, i.e. competences that belong exclusively to the state authorities of the Republic of Poland,” and is therefore inconsistent with Article 90 of the Constitution, which concerns the transfer of certain powers of state authorities to international organisations.
As stated in the justification, the scope of the transferred competences would breach “the limits of integration defined by the constitutional identity of the Republic of Poland” — above all in the area of security-related powers, which form part of the “essence of sovereignty” of the state. According to the president, adopting the bill would create the risk of establishing a new EU competence, namely the participation of EU institutions in deciding on the equipment of the Polish Armed Forces.
“It is one thing for states to coordinate armaments policies independently, and quite another for the EU to determine an EU armaments policy to be carried out by the member states,” the document reads.
Reservations about the loan mechanism
“From the point of view of the binding Constitution, in my profound conviction, a state in which an external entity co-decides on the armament and military equipment of its army in an amount exceeding PLN 180 billion is not a sovereign (independent) state — it is not a state that independently decides its own fate,” the justification says.
It was also noted that under the SAFE mechanism a state must submit a request to the European Commission twice a year for the disbursement of each loan tranche. “The Commission assesses the completeness, correctness and consistency of the payment request. If it positively concludes that the conditions set out in the SAFE Regulation have been met, it adopts, without undue delay, a decision allowing the disbursement of the loan tranche — but the Commission’s assessment does not have to be positive,” the justification states.
“A borrowing state has no right to appeal to a court against a negative assessment by the Commission. In other words, Article 45 of the Constitution of the Republic of Poland does not apply in such proceedings, nor do other provisions of Polish law that form part of the system of reviewing the legality of actions taken by public authorities. In light of the above, in SAFE loan proceedings EU institutions act in an authoritative manner,” the president assessed in the document.
As the justification explains, the Commission applies within the SAFE mechanism a “conditionality mechanism which is legally indeterminate and allows for arbitrary linking of the borrowing state to so-called milestones.” “The Commission’s authoritative action within the SAFE programme (...) is incompatible with the principle of state sovereignty,” it adds.
“The SAFE Regulation allows the Commission to suspend the disbursement of loan tranches at will and to make their payment conditional on Poland fulfilling further, new conditions — various dynamically developed and modified so-called milestones,” the text emphasises. According to the president, a similar mechanism has already appeared in the case of Poland’s National Recovery Plan (KPO).
Constitutional and financial arguments
Citing, among other things, the provisions of the Treaty on European Union, the president argues that EU institutions may act only within the limits defined by the EU treaties — and these do not include competences relating to the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland. Moreover, according to the justification, under Article...
Dr. Jacek Zaleśny, a constitutional lawyer from the Institute of Political Science at the University of Warsaw, assessed that since the president, as the highest representative of the state, vetoed the law authorizing the taking out of loans from the SAFE mechanism, other state authorities cannot do so without a statute.
“In light of Polish law, Polish state authorities do not have the competence to undertake an international obligation within the SAFE mechanism,” the lawyer stated.
According to the expert, the use of SAFE requires the consent of the Sejm expressed in a statute due to the scale of the loans involved. In an interview with Defence24.pl, Dr. Jacek Zaleśny also pointed out that the government is approaching the constitutional threshold for permissible public debt.
An obligation under international law may only be undertaken by a state authority that is empowered to act on behalf of the state. In Poland’s case, the provisions regulating the division of competences between the Sejm, the Council of Ministers, and the president apply. The SAFE mechanism is referred to in Polish legal regulations—namely the act vetoed by the president—as well as in the EU Council regulation on SAFE. The matter is also governed by the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties and the Polish Act on International Agreements.
“If all applicable legal provisions are taken into account, the lack of the president’s consent to bind Poland to the SAFE mechanism—as a consequence of the veto—means that, under Polish law, Polish state authorities do not have the competence to undertake an international obligation within the SAFE mechanism,” Zaleśny stated.
“Consequences in the international legal sphere”
He pointed out that “since the president, who under Article 126(1) of the Constitution is the highest representative of the Republic of Poland, publicly announced—making it a commonly known fact—that Poland will not use the SAFE mechanism because there is no presidential approval, this has far-reaching consequences for what may occur in the international legal sphere.”
According to Dr. Zaleśny, “the president’s decision means that, in the international arena, an obligation under SAFE cannot be undertaken precisely because there is no consent from the domestic authority required to implement the SAFE mechanism.”
The expert stressed that any entity currently acting on behalf of Poland regarding SAFE would be doing so without proper authorization, which would have consequences for the validity of such an agreement.
“If a potential creditor has been informed that the potential debtor seeking to conclude a contract is not authorized to do so, and nevertheless the creditor signs such an agreement, then the creditor bears the full risk associated with it. In the future, it may turn out that the debtor undertook an obligation and borrowed money, but the creditor will not recover those funds because they lent money to someone who did not have the competence to undertake obligations on behalf of the state—meaning that the debtor would be a private individual who assumed the debt, rather than the state,” he explained.
He emphasized that “what has happened in Poland has far-reaching practical consequences also in the international legal sphere, including in the context of any potential obligation between the European Commission and an entity acting on behalf of Poland.”
“Consent of the Sejm expressed in a statute”
Referring to the question of whether the government could use another, non-statutory path regarding SAFE, he pointed to Article 89 of the Constitution, which lists five categories of cases in which concluding an international obligation requires the consent of the Sejm expressed in a statute.
One of these concerns obligations that impose significant financial burdens on the state. According to Zaleśny, this is precisely the case with the SAFE mechanism, whose use by Poland would have major financial consequences—estimated at around 180 billion złoty in loans (plus the cost of servicing the loan, which in practice would not be lower than the loan amount itself).
For comparison, annual state budget expenditures for 2026 amount to about 900 billion złoty.
“Even if the SAFE mechanism concerned purely financial matters, it still could not proceed without the consent of the Sejm expressed in a statute,” Zaleśny said.
President Karol Nawrocki, speaking during a meeting in Chmielnik, addressed the reasons behind his veto of the SAFE bill.
“Taking on obligations until 2070, also on behalf of these wonderful children and young people standing here with us, is too serious a commitment to sign such a loan,” the president said.
President Nawrocki also appealed to Sejm Marshal Włodzimierz Czarzasty to unblock the president’s legislative initiatives, noting that they contain solutions beneficial for Polish society. This also concerns the 0% SEJF project.
He stressed that his decision regarding the EU’s SAFE program was made independently and in the interest of Polish citizens.
“I believe that decisions concerning Poland’s freedom, sovereignty, security, the development of the Polish Armed Forces, and the defense industry are decisions of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland, not of Brussels and not of the European Union,” he said.
“We cannot surrender sovereignty”
The president recalled that he had made this promise during the election campaign in nearly 400 locations. He emphasized that Poland wants to remain part of the EU, but that “there are limits to the centralization of the European Union,” defined by both Polish and EU law. Nawrocki added that the SAFE program is inconsistent with Article 4 of the Treaty on European Union and with the Polish Constitution.
“We cannot hand over sovereignty, decision-making powers, or security to the European Union, because the fundamental law in Poland does not allow it,” he said.
“We made every effort to work on this bill so that Poland could use European funds in a way that would not undermine the Polish constitutional system. It was not possible to refine it to a level where we could say that our sovereignty would be preserved. Taking on obligations until 2070, also on behalf of these wonderful children and young people standing here with us, is too serious a commitment to sign such a loan,” the president stated.
He also pointed out that it is impossible to predict what the European Union will look like in several decades. In his view, Poland cannot “become trapped” in a program that does not allow freedom in strategic thinking about national security. He emphasized that flexibility is necessary — and that such flexibility is provided by the 0% SEJF proposal.
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“How would you convince them that this program is important and necessary?” Dariusz Joński asked a Dutch Member of the European Parliament during a discussion in the European Parliament, referring to the SAFE program. The response was brief: “Of course it is financed through joint debt, which is not particularly sensible, because interest on previous loans still has to be repaid and that burden falls on future generations.” The recording was later commented on by Waldemar Buda. “He didn’t expect such an answer,” the former minister wrote.
A recording of part of a conversation about the SAFE program—an EU instrument for financing defense investments—has appeared online. The discussion involved Polish MEP Dariusz Joński and Dutch MEP Bert-Jan Ruissen (from the Christian-right Reformed Political Party).
During the exchange, Joński asked his interlocutor how to persuade those who are skeptical about the program.
“How would you convince those politicians who say we should not take this money, that we should not use these funds? How would you convince them that this program is nevertheless important and necessary?” the Polish MEP asked.
Bert-Jan Ruissen gave a short reply:
“The SAFE program is, of course, a strengthening of our own defense potential. That is needed. Of course it is financed through joint debt, which is not particularly sensible, because interest on previous loans still has to be repaid and that burden falls on future generations,” he said.
The recording was later commented on on social media by former Minister of Development and Technology Waldemar Buda.
“You’re done for (…) he didn’t expect such an answer,” the politician wrote.
What makes the situation even more amusing is that Joński posted the Dutch MEP’s response on his own social media—but in a shortened version. He included only the sentences: “The SAFE program is, of course, a strengthening of our own defense potential. That is needed,” omitting the rest of the statement.
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