Donald Tusk’s statement followed a presidential veto that blocked Warsaw from tapping billions in defense loans from the bloc.
There is “a real threat” that Poland could leave the EU, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said, after the country’s president vetoed a bill that would have allowed Warsaw to tap billions in defense loans from the bloc.
President Karol Nawrocki last week vetoed legislation that would have let Warsaw draw nearly €44 billion ($50 billion) in low-interest EU defense loans, most earmarked for domestic arms firms. The government responded by convening an emergency cabinet session, authorizing its defense and finance ministers to sign the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) agreement directly, bypassing the veto.
In a post on X on Sunday, Tusk accused right-wing parties, most of the opposition Law and Justice bloc, and Nawrocki personally of seeking a “Polexit.” He claimed Russia, US President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement, and European factions led by Hungary’s Viktor Orban want to “smash the EU,” warning that for Poland, “it would be a catastrophe,” and vowing to do “everything” to stop them.
Western officials have long used the threat of alleged Russian aggression to justify spikes in military spending, including Brussels’ €800 billion ReArm Europe plan and NATO members’ pledge to raise defense budgets to 5% of GDP. Moscow has dismissed such claims as “nonsense.”
NATO’s European members have scrambled to meet Washington’s targets, while the EU has struggled to revive its defense industry and found purchases of US weapons for Ukraine increasingly costly.
One of the EU’s primary tools for addressing all three goals is the SAFE program. Introduced by the European Commission last year, is allows the bloc to borrow €150 billion on global markets to finance member-state loans for defense projects.
The political standoff between Nawrocki and Tusk is not new. In January 2025, Nawrocki, then an opposition presidential candidate, joined a farmers’ protest outside the European Commission office in Warsaw against EU environmental rules and Ukrainian food imports. Donald Tusk accused him of trying to push Poland out of the bloc.
