Government spokesperson Adam Szłapka attempted to call out what he described as a lie by Daniel Obajtek, an MEP from Law and Justice (PiS), but it turned out that he himself had not carefully read the bills his own camp submits to the Sejm. “You don’t even know the government’s own bill – or you are deliberately lying,” said MP Janusz Kowalski.
A debate is currently underway in Poland over the SAFE instrument – EU defense loans. The law implementing the instrument in Poland has passed through parliament and landed on the desk of the President of the Republic of Poland, who has less than three weeks left to make a decision.
The opposition points to risks arising, among other things, from restrictions on how the funds may be spent – favoring European industry, incurring debt in a foreign currency, and subjecting expenditures to the principle of conditionality.
Daniel Obajtek, an MEP from Law and Justice (PiS), drew attention to the issue of so-called milestones, a concept known from the National Recovery Plan.
We reported on this several days ago on TV Republika and Niezalezna. “It is Brussels that decides what we are to spend the loan on, in what direction we are to pursue our armament policy. And that’s not all! There are provisions stating that there is also a conditionality mechanism. There are various milestones – so once again they want to activate the pseudo rule-of-law mechanism in order to always have leverage over Poland,” Obajtek says in a video posted online.
The PiS MEP’s video prompted a response from government spokesperson Adam Szłapka.
“Attention! Obajtek is lying. There are no milestones in SAFE. The milestones were approved by Morawiecki in the National Recovery Plan,” he wrote.
One might say – bold words coming from a politician whose 19 statements were deemed truthful only five times, according to the website Demagog.pl.
(screenshot demagog.pl)
Numerous comments were directed at Szłapka, especially given that references to “milestones” appear explicitly in the explanatory memorandum to the law implementing SAFE.