The General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces prepared a “preliminary list” of tasks to be financed from SAFE, based on the military’s needs. However, the final list was modified after considering the needs of the Ministries of the Interior and Administration, and Infrastructure. The SAFE instrument makes it possible to finance infrastructure investments as well as security-related projects.
Loan funds will also be used to finance projects that were originally intended to be carried out under the Armed Forces Support Fund. This could potentially free up room for new tasks that might then be scheduled for financing from the Support Fund’s resources.
Niezależna.pl received a series of explanations from the Armament Agency.
Government statements vs. reality
What turned out to be the case? Statements made by government representatives about SAFE were, at the very least, imprecise.
“It is not the case that anyone in the government indicated a list of needs or contractors. The army did that. Contractors will also be selected through procedures conducted by the Armament Agency,”
said Magdalena Sobkowiak, the Government’s Plenipotentiary for SAFE, in the media last week.
Deputy Minister of National Defence Cezary Tomczyk also claimed that the military had decided where the armaments would be purchased.
“The Polish Armed Forces will determine this, because it is the Armament Agency and the General Staff that plan and select the contractors supplying equipment to the Polish army,”
he said.
Niezależna.pl received a detailed timeline of actions related to the SAFE program, which should be compared with the statements made by government representatives.
It shows that in May 2025, the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces prepared a “preliminary list of tasks” to be implemented under SAFE. Ultimately, the following were identified, among others: the construction of drone and counter-drone systems; activities aimed at security in the Baltic Sea; cryptography; cybersecurity; protection of critical infrastructure; the use of artificial intelligence; the development of the “Eastern Shield”; and the acquisition of multi-role air-to-air refueling and transport aircraft (MRTT). At that stage, there was no mention of specific entities to receive funding, except for tasks already being carried out under signed contracts, which could potentially be expanded to include the acquisition of additional units.
In May, the Ministry of State Assets and the Ministry of Development and Technology joined the work on the “preliminary list of tasks” prepared by the General Staff. They verified the “scope of participation of European components.” In June 2025, the Armament Agency began examining the possibility of meeting the eligibility criteria regarding the “preliminary list of tasks,” also using information obtained from the two ministries.
In June, the Armament Agency began drawing up a list of companies – potential contractors for the tasks to be financed under SAFE. Official correspondence between the Agency and those entities began at that time. According to the timeline, the relevant units of the Ministry of National Defence, primarily the Armaments Policy Department, have been involved since June in activities “aimed at achieving joint procurements.”
On July 29, Poland submitted to the European Commission a preliminary declaration to obtain a loan under the EU SAFE program (the so-called Expression of Interest).
“The General Staff defined the preliminary list of tasks very broadly, from the perspective of the military’s needs, and forwarded it to subsequent competent and authorized entities to confront that list with the conditions set out in the SAFE Regulation. Other institutions were also important in this process, namely the relevant organizational units of the Ministry of National Defence and other ministries, including State Assets, Development and Technology, as well as the Ministries of the Interior and Administration and Infrastructure,”
Col. Grzegorz Polak, spokesperson for the Armament Agency, told Niezależna.pl in response to the questions.
As he emphasized, the Ministry of State Assets and the Ministry of Development and Technology, whose remit includes broadly understood cooperation with industry, initially verified one of the key eligibility conditions, namely that 65 percent of the value of a product’s components must originate from European countries.
“Based on this preliminary analysis, the Armament Agency, authorized to maintain contacts with industry within its statutory tasks (including market analysis, conducting procurement procedures, and contract management), verified all eligibility conditions in cases where tasks were at the stage of preparation or procurement proceedings, as well as with respect to concluded contracts, given the retroactive nature of the Regulation (the loan may cover all stages, i.e., deliveries under contracts from the date the SAFE Regulation entered into force, May 29, 2025). In cases where tasks were not yet ready to initiate procurement proceedings, the Armament Agency conducts ongoing verification, incorporating SAFE eligibility conditions into the procedures (meeting the criteria is a condition for participation in the proceedings),”
the spokesperson informed Niezależna.pl.
Thus, through SAFE funds, expenditures were planned for tasks implemented even before the Regulation entered into force, which the SAFE instrument allows. For example, projects that have already been partially financed by the Armed Forces Support Fund may now continue to be financed from SAFE resources. Only the source of financing changes.
This was stated explicitly by Prof. Marta Postuła, First Vice-President of Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego.
“As regards the Support Fund, first, we have further payments planned for ongoing contracts, those that have already been signed. Even if advance payments have already been made, and these may initially amount to up to 33 percent of the contractor’s remuneration for a given order, subsequent payments are still foreseen for later years and will be carried out using SAFE funds. This will ease our burden by reducing the scale of incurring liabilities from other sources,”
Postuła emphasized in an interview with wnp.pl.
The spokesperson for the Armament Agency admitted that, based on statements by “potential” and “current” contractors for tasks intended to be financed under SAFE, “tasks that objectively failed to meet the eligibility conditions directly resulting from the SAFE Regulation were excluded.”
“The resulting list of tasks remained very broad, and therefore, the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces carried out a prioritization of tasks. Consequently, the Expression of Interest, which presented only the total estimated value of tasks and capability areas, included the highest-priority tasks,”
he stressed.
The Ministry of the Interior and Administration adds “its own”
After July 29, when it became clear that the total value of Expressions of Interest submitted by all interested Member States would allow for financing all initially selected tasks, the Polish authorities began work on drafting an Investment Plan, also involving the Ministry of Infrastructure, and the Ministry of the Interior and Administration.
The changes, Col. Polak informed Niezależna, resulted in particular from two circumstances: the submission of tasks by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration (the State Protection Service, Border Guard, Police) and the Ministry of Infrastructure, as well as “the results of ongoing public procurement procedures (conclusion of contracts, submission of price offers).”
As a result of these actions, and following the appointment of the Government Plenipotentiary, approximately €3 billion from SAFE will also be allocated, among other things, to the purchase of police weapons and ammunition, tactical and bulletproof vests, the development of road and rail infrastructure, and ICT systems.