The Polish public is being terrorized with the alleged necessity of joining the SAFE loan-and-political mechanism. The ruling camp has employed a broad set of measures aimed at creating strong moral pressure – anyone who opposes the EU loan is portrayed as opposing Poland’s security.
What is interesting, however, is that nearly all the effort is being used to create this false alternative rather than to conduct a substantive debate about the project itself. We are therefore witnessing crude stigmatization of skeptics (“blockheads”), warnings about Russian aggression and about responsibility for the deaths of Poles who are supposedly to die in road attacks next year (as stated by Radosław Sikorski in his parliamentary exposé), and assurances that a loan from the European Commission is the most advantageous financial mechanism, even though no one knows and no one will learn what its real terms are. There is also the illusion that the policy embedded in SAFE – the so-called conditionality, meaning that funds will only be paid out when EU institutions are satisfied with the level of “rule of law” in our country and with the degree of compliance with rulings of the Court of Justice of the European Union – is merely anti-corruption oversight.
In short, the ruling coalition has done everything possible to prevent an honest debate about financing our armed forces. Clearly, such a discussion – with all the cards laid openly on the table – would be extremely inconvenient for it. The most repulsive element, however, is this false alternative: either SAFE or defenselessness.
In the latest issue of the monthly magazine Nowe Państwo, former minister Piotr Nowak, an outstanding and highly experienced expert in managing public-sector debt and also a graduate of a military academy, thoroughly dismantles this manipulation. He does so in a clear, readable and calm manner, and his words stand in stark contrast to the shrill blackmail rhetoric served up by the more or less competent representatives of the coalition led by Donald Tusk. This is what a public debate on a matter fundamental to all of us – the security of our country – should look like.
The phrase “blockheads” is not only a sign of the genuine attitude toward a large part of the citizens of the Republic of Poland, who are demanding knowledge and a minimal level of secrecy. It is also a sign of dramatic desperation. No one questions the need for rearmament, the expansion of the army, and the radical strengthening of Poland’s resilience to aggression from Russia or anyone else. Unfortunately, however, the people who for years – while Russia was openly preparing for a genocidal march – spoke about its peaceful intentions and democratic transformation are the least credible advisers on the defense of our state.
If Donald Tusk, Radosław Sikorski and the rest were capable of being so dramatically wrong, or of dramatically lying, about Moscow, how could anyone reasonable today treat their declarations seriously?
Poland is not backed against the wall. We do not have to choose between EU political-defense policy and the lack of possibilities to finance our army. We can develop our potential based on our own financial capabilities and do so in a rational and effective way, while also strengthening alliances that could realistically support us in a moment of trial. In this process, we can also cooperate with German companies – but on the basis of voluntariness and mutual benefit, not because a loan forces us to purchase something meant to build some mythical European military potential rather than our own – Polish one.
More on this topic can be found in the latest issue of the monthly magazine “Nowe Państwo.”