This article is part of the Polish Presidency of the EU special report.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump are looming over Poland’s upcoming Council of the European Union presidency.
The six-month rotating presidency puts member countries in charge of the agenda for meetings of ministers and helps set the direction for the bloc.
For Warsaw, the main preoccupation is Russia’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine and the massive security risk that poses to Kyiv, Poland and the whole EU.
As Poland gears up for the presidency, which starts on Jan. 1., the security situation in Ukraine is fraught: Russia is making steady advances along the front, the United States, France and the United Kingdom have given Kyiv permission to use long-range missiles to hit targets inside Russia and Moscow has retaliated by striking Ukraine with a ballistic missile normally used for nuclear weapons.
Added to that, Trump will be sworn in as U.S. president three weeks after the start of Poland’s presidency. Brussels is fixated on whether Trump will abandon NATO and force Ukraine into an unfavorable peace and if he will launch a trade war against the EU.
“Elections in Germany, change of government [in Washington], war in Ukraine, war in the Middle East. Those are the factors that will affect the Polish presidency and we are taking them into account,” Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, Poland’s undersecretary of state for EU affairs, told Poland’s TVP state television network in November. “The main message of Poland’s presidency is security.”
The presidency will focus on different types of security: external and military, energy, economic, food and climate, health and information.
External and military security is tied to the war in Ukraine and Russia. Poland wants the EU to continue backing Ukraine and to develop the bloc’s defense industry. “It will be one of the most important subjects for us,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
Warsaw will discuss how to boost financing for the bloc’s military-industrial complex — recognizing that some member countries, like Germany and the Netherlands, are allergic to the idea of issuing common bonds to pay for defense projects.
“The current Dutch government is even more hostile than the previous one but if Germany moves [after next year’s election] I hardly imagine smaller opponents insist to say no,” said a diplomat speaking on condition of being granted anonymity.
It will help that the new budget commissioner is Piotr Serafin, an experienced Polish official.
During its presidency, Warsaw will have to deal with the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), a proposed €1.5 billion fund to help the bloc’s arms companies. That’s only a fraction of what the EU will have to spend; European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc needs €500 billion in additional defense cash over the next decade.
The Commission also plans to publish a policy paper on defense during the Polish presidency.
Warsaw’s focus is clear from its presidency budget. The government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk is budgeting 412 million złoty (€96 million), only a third of that planned by its nationalist predecessors, who aimed to spend a fortune on cultural events in the United States. The new approach is much more austere.
Pressure to boost defense spending
There is also a Trump element.
“After the U.S. election, we in Europe have to have our own [defense] plans,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
However, Warsaw, which aims to spend 4.7 percent of gross domestic product on defense next year — the highest level in NATO — is in a more comfortable position than many other countries when faced with Trump’s demands to spend more on their militaries.
“When it comes to his comments on defense … we don’t have large fears,” she said.
Riho Terras, a former Estonian defense chief and now a member of the European Parliament for the center-right European People’s Party, said he expects Warsaw to “push other member states to increase their defense spending,” because Poland “serves here as a remarkable role model.”
Poland also wants the rest of the EU to help finance the East Shield, the €2.3 billion Warsaw-led project to strengthen defenses along its borders with Belarus and Russia. “We want cofinancing from other countries,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
External security also includes halting the flow of migrants across the border with Belarus. In October, Warsaw won the backing of other EU capitals to temporarily ban asylum requests for those coming from Russia or Belarus.
“The approach to migration has to change,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka. “What we are facing on the eastern border with Belarus … is hybrid warfare.”
Other aspects of security also have a Kremlin flavor. Warsaw’s effort to boost energy security means seeking to reduce dependency on Russian energy, while information security will aim at “battling disinformation, one of the tools of hybrid warfare,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
The Trump factor
Warsaw’s presidency will also tackle economic security, and that’s where Trump looms large. During the presidential campaign, Trump promised to levy tariffs on imports coming into the U.S., and the EU is preparing to respond.
“Today, nobody knows exactly what President Trump will do in terms of tariff barriers,” said Sobkowiak-Czarnecka.
Despite Poland’s calls for beefing up Europe’s defense industry, there are fears that Warsaw — with its historically close ties with Washington — may weaken under pressure from Trump.
Trump “will push us to spend more, no doubt about that,” said a second EU diplomat. “I can easily see a scenario where he will also use these kinds of methods to push us to buy American and Poland is a natural target.”
Poland is rapidly rearming and tracking toward having the largest land army in Europe, but so far the bulk of its purchases of jet fighters, tanks and artillery are from the U.S. and South Korea. Poland is one of the top five importers of American weapons.
A likely point of friction with the new Trump administration is Ukraine — where Poland has been a strong supporter hoping for a clear Russian defeat.
Here the positions of Warsaw and Washington “drastically diverge,” said Antonio Missiroli, a former NATO assistant secretary-general.
The post Trump, Putin create tail winds for Poland’s defense spending push appeared first on Politico.
