Is SAFE a trap for Poland? Prof. Grosse: “We occupy the lowest decks of Titanic”

Professor Tomasz Gross and I are talking about the SAFE program as a geoeconomic trap, the request to domesticate the Polish arms manufacture and the European Union, which, like Titanic, is moving towards the iceberg.

(Interview is simply a edited and completed version of the podcast Are you aware? p. EU like Titanic? Is SAFE a lifeboat or a trap for Poland?)

Rafał Górski: There is simply a heated public debate on the SAFE programme. On the 1 hand, Poles and Poles hear that this programme is intended to strengthen the safety of Poland. On the another hand, there are voices that through this programme Brussels can have a greater impact on our political decisions. What do you think?

Professor Tomasz Grosse: The SAFE programme was prepared by the European Commission and has a very circumstantial geoeconomic structure. This programme is intended to benefit European corporations, in peculiar those that have the most to sale on the interior marketplace of the Union, which is mainly corporations from Western Europe.

The current government declares that it will primarily invest money from the SAFE programme in companies operating in Poland. However, the fact is that orders will be mostly received by Western European corporations, which will either registry their daughter companies in Poland or deliver various components under contracts signed by Polish companies.

Western European companies will strengthen the technology base of Polish companies to a limited extent, as the transfer of technology between companies is prevented.

Even if we buy any equipment, it does not mean that we will besides buy the technology needed for its production, which means that the home manufacture will not benefit from it.

From our point of view, it is crucial to build the strength of the Polish army and the real origin of the Polish army in the square of the fight. That act depends on who has military technology. If the arms manufacture is domesticated, develops its own technologies and only to any degree eats certain components or external technology, the national army is autonomous. If most equipment relies on external technologies, unfortunately, the decisions on how to usage this equipment besides fall outside.

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Poland is little advanced in military technology than Germany or France. How come we didn't win the technology transfer?

As I said, this programme is the work of the European Commission, so there was a political blockade of technology transfer. The SAFE programme was prepared to a large degree to order large Western European corporations, primarily German and French. This large Western European industry, in anticipation of a debt under the SAFE programme, has already made quite a few investments, has set up various types of daughter companies in many countries of Central Europe, including Poland, in order to accept contracts, contracts and make money.

Western European trade unions want to gradually dominate the Central Europe marketplace in the arms sector.

Poland is already very dependent on the German economy, and the SAFE programme will deepen this dependence in the section that matters for our security.

As a result, we will not be independent, we will gotta do all the activities in abroad and safety policy, consult with Brussels or Berlin. We will not be able to cooperate with the Americans as we have so far, due to the fact that the SAFE task is besides intended to weaken our transatlantic relations through geo-economic dependence on Western Europe.

These 2 elements resulting from the implementation of the SAFE programme, namely: deepening dependence on Western Europe and weakening transatlantic relations, are risky for Poland. The 3rd element, possibly the most crucial one, is that we do not gain our own origin in defence policy. Our defence will depend on whether we have our own weapons industry, due to the fact that if we do not have it, our defence capabilities are based on technologies and external equipment. Then it is up to the Americans or the Germans or the French to decide whether we can usage the equipment. And that's the biggest problem.

In my opinion, president Nawrocki's counter-proposal is very good, due to the fact that for the first time we have the chance to make a robust arms programme based on our own financial resources, which we can devote to the improvement of national industry. The erstwhile government bought massively from Americans and Koreans, and this government would buy primarily from Germans and French. Mass external purchases are not good for Poland.

You said that Western corporations' daughters were created in Poland before we even heard of SAFE. erstwhile did this full process start?

The European regulation concerning the SAFE programme was introduced by the Polish Presidency, in the first half of 2025. Of course, work on this programme was already ongoing in the European Commission, and French or German concerns knew it. These companies have been investing heavy in Central Europe for the last 2 or 3 years. Earlier, I utilized the wording that corporations had anticipated this loan, that is to say, they were aware that they would gradually take over the outlet marketplace in central Europe, which is simply a very large arms merchant due to the Russian threat.

Western European corporations have long been very reluctant to see Central Europe buying so many weapons outside Europe. The SAFE program was designed, among another things, to redirect these purchases towards Western Europe, and to exclude, among another things, the United States from this program. This program has records that make it very hard to buy from another non-European corporations, not only American, including Korean, nipponese or Israeli and British.

For respective years we have been developing very crucial anti-aircraft, anti-missile programs: defence shields in the field of average and long-range rockets. These programs are implemented in cooperation with the American, British, partially Israeli industry. With the SAFE funds, we cannot proceed this work.

That is why Germany and the French proposed to Poles that we join their anti-aircraft and anti-missile defence programs, abandoning these initiated transatlantic projects.

SAFE is an instrument that is expected to kill respective roasts with 1 stone, that is: to make it hard for us to proceed with the erstwhile arms projects that we have implemented with the Americans, the British or another countries outside the European Union, and to redirect our purchases towards Western Europe.

The SAFE programme is intended to deepen this geo-economic dependence on Western Europe, which will not increase Polish autonomy, causality.

It will be essential to postpone the dreams of co-operation within the east flank of NATO or the projects of the Inter-mortar or the Tri-mortar. The SAFE programme will complicate specified autonomous objectives. The European Union is about controlling our defence policy, we are simply equal to the Western European series, and it is known that there are any contradictions of interest between Poland and the West.

What about Washington?

Washington is not satisfied with the SAFE program, primarily due to the fact that it cuts off the ability to buy weapons in the United States. I think, however, that Washington has missed something much more important: it is not about eliminating US weapons from Europe, it is about overriding the defence policy of the countries of Central Europe to be controlled by Western Europe. The Americans have signaled, for example, in the National safety Strategy, that they want to cooperate with the common sense countries of Central Europe, which distance themselves from the sinking Western crises.

SAFE is simply a circumstantial instrument that has these U.S. intentions to block, and it seems that the United States has not seen it in time, occupied by various conflicts around the world.

So how should we act?

I believe that we should first of all build our autonomous arms industry. We should minimize our dependence on another countries, build our own actions in abroad and defence policy and not trust solely on allies.

Of course, alliances are crucial and comparing Western Europe with the United States, it must be admitted that Americans have much more real military potential.

If we are to cooperate with individual in the fields of military, military technology, the arms industry, it would be more beneficial for us to cooperate with the Americans, but besides with the Nordic countries or with Ukraine as part of the alleged east flank of NATO. To be honest, it must be stressed that the SAFE programme offers any opportunities for cooperation with Ukraine or North Europe.

In connection with the SAFE programme there are very advanced political emotions, there is strong criticism of all opponents, while the government uses information embargo tactics.

Even the Western press writes more about Polish SAFE than Poles.

From the Western press, we learn that we are to buy ships, for example, French, that we are to buy quite a few different parts or arms components in Germany and so on. erstwhile the government talks about nothing, we trust on our cognition so far. Europeans like me are looking at this gigantic debt at a distance, due to the fact that we know that akin programs in the European Union have driven customers to large French, German, sometimes French-German arms corporations. The full of Central Europe was to buy only, not access to technology, not strengthen its own manufacture in an autonomous direction.

What is in the interests of the Polish state?

I believe that we request to take a debt for our own defence techniques and capabilities, due to the fact that this is an absolute foundation on which we should base ourselves. Ukraine during the war, under very hard conditions was able to develop, grow on a immense scale its own capabilities of the arms manufacture and fresh technologies adapted to the current needs of the military. We should do this today, before Russia's war with NATO starts, so that we can truly prepare for war based on these Ukrainian experiences.

If we only buy outside or depend on external technologies, we may have the most tanks in Europe, but we will not be able to usage them, due to the fact that that will be the political decision in Western Europe or in the United States.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

We should not enter the SAFE programme, especially as Western Europe's technologies are obsolete. The war in Ukraine showed how crucial it is to adapt appropriate technologies to the conflict. We request drones and all kinds of anti-drone technology and mid- and long-range rockets. Western Europe does not have developed these technologies, it asks for them from the Ukrainian side. So if we're going to work with individual on principle, joint venture, it would be better to go towards Ukraine, which during the war developed these technologies in the square of combat.

Let me stress again: domesticating the arms manufacture is independency in defence and abroad policy. If we build this base, we will be a very interesting partner for all ally, including the United States. Then getting allies, talking about stabilising the situation on the east flank of NATO will look different.

Ukraine is able to make modern defence technologies, although it bleeds out in war, and we Poles are incapable to do so in a time of peace...

This demonstrates the state of Polish political elites who are incapable to think creatively and to act for their own safety and perpetuity. Ukrainians are aware that they will either win or lose. They fight for survival, they have no choice but to depend only on the Chimeric West, which erstwhile promises them something, sometimes delivers and sometimes undoes promises.

Ukrainians are working to receive weapons and backing from the West, but in parallel they are developing their own technologies that they need. And abruptly it turns out that the top power in the world, the United States, is asking Ukrainians to aid with anti-drone systems,

because it turns out that their own systems are of course very effective, only infernally expensive. Even Americans do not have the possible to produce these costly anti-drone or anti-racite systems on a large scale during the real fighting in Iran, so they ask Ukrainians to support them, yes – Ukrainians! This is, you could say, a giggling story, but it besides shows how the Ukrainians have gone through the past 4 years. We did almost nothing or small compared to them.

Instead, we're arguing about whether to decision from American-Korean to German-French... Israelis and Ukrainians know that they are safe and doive if they have their own weapons manufacture in the country, their own technologies, their own production capacity and on a large scale.

This is simply a large discipline we don't usage at all. This past of Ukrainian arms, which the Americans ask for during the prolonged conflict with Iran, will greatly strengthen Ukraine's position in the negotiations on the freezing of the conflict in Ukraine. Earlier, the Americans tried to force concessions in Ukraine for Russia, which the Ukrainians, of course, refused to accept. They besides refused to make concessions due to the fact that they knew that they could proceed to defend themselves, even if they did not get anything from the United States. Literally, nothing. This, in my opinion, is the best example of the fact that without your own weapons industry, you cannot make any decisions on your own within the framework of your own safety. If Ukrainians did not have their own defence capabilities, the Americans would have forced them to very unfavourablely frost the conflict in Ukraine on Russian terms.

Now the Ukrainians can triumph due to the fact that they proved to be needed by the Americans.

This is an crucial example of how you can deal with Americans on much better terms erstwhile you're on your own.

The lesson for Poles is: you request to strengthen yourself, you request to gain any independence, even from this strongest ally just to gain in his eyes.

Let us decision on to your book "Titanic control, which is crisis management in the European Union". You write: "The European integration project, moving towards an increasingly centralised, increasingly little democratic superstructure, was intended to lead to a number of benefits for a large business, to easier management of the European Union by technocracy and judiciary with preferences for German and French interests. Subsequent crises, especially the way they were managed, have undermined and disorganised these plans."

Say: is the European superstate a good direction?

I don't think so. The subsequent crises we faced were very badly managed, strategical decisions were inadequate. Look at the migration crisis. any measures were taken, for example, it was intended to introduce this celebrated relocation mechanism, namely that Poland would accept any immigrants from Germany. Only that this is not a solution to the crisis, it is simply a shift in certain costs of the migration crisis.

The relocation mechanics will infect another countries with the migration crisis, and it will not solve the problems of Germany or France.

The increase in the number of anti-system groups, anti-European, anti-establishment groups simply rips apart France and Germany into pieces. There's no telling where it'll go. The European Union is possibly the only organism in the planet that has no control over its external borders. Furthermore, the Union recognises that illegal immigration must be dealt with and protected in any way. Immigrants break the law, are supported by criminal organisations or by Lukashenko or Putin, who usage immigrants as weapons to destabilise the European Union from within.

Another crisis, namely the euro crisis, has to any degree been addressed through quantitative loosening, which has led to many consequences, specified as inflation and, in fact, stagflation, the combination of inflation and a simplification in economical growth. This is besides not good for the European Union, especially for the confederate euro area, due to the fact that it hampers economical development, which then leads to social discontent, which must be reflected sooner or later in the Union itself.

The worst part is that the Union is not utilizing crises to build robust institutions to tackle akin crises in the future.

Therefore, we should not anticipate anything good from a superstate, due to the fact that it will be controlled by the same elites that do not give further exams.

Tomasz Gabiś in his book “Imperial games between the European Empire and orderly anarchy“ The imperial elite consists of representatives of the military-industrial-scientific-medial-entertainment complex, members of the cosmocracy, a globalistic oligarchy created by the global financial system, members of the capitalist global body, major corporations, especially pharmaceutical and technological corporations, and banking and financial groups regulating global movements of supermobilized castane capital, global techno-oliganchy,” he writes.

Who do you think is in charge of the European Union?

The European Union is steered by large business from Western Europe: German and French. This is complemented by alleged transnational elites, namely officials and judges of the European Union. The full project, which is the Union, is supported by large media corporations, which function in different associate States, including Poland.

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Is there any chance that our Titanic, the European Union, will turn and not hit an iceberg, or do we gotta look for a lifeboat?

Well, we're the outermost state of the Union, which means we occupy these lowest decks of Titanic. We don't have much influence on the Captain's Bridge, no 1 on first-class deck cares about our problems. We gotta remember that we have a long way to go to the lifeboats, so we should find a way to save ourselves from Titanic erstwhile it's sinking.

The countries of the centre of the Union usually prepare Plan B and even C. The centre of the Union was prepared to simply break down. The Dutch and Germany even started producing their own national banknotes in advance. This shows that even the most catastrophic, unrealistic scenarios are being considered seriously in the European centre and that so emergency solutions are being prepared, which can be implemented rapidly at the right time.

In Poland we do not prepare for black scenarios at all.

While we're on that 3rd or 4th deck of Titanic, we don't presume we'll always hit an iceberg. The time has come for us to start answering questions: what will we do if Russia attacks us? How should we save ourselves? What kind of defence policy should we pursue?

Returning to SAFE: we should base safety on something more unchangeable than the European Union. We should trust on ourselves, have our own resources, our own technologies, our own industry. We can cooperate with Ukraine, the Nordic countries, due to the fact that they have precisely the same threat perspective, possibly with the United States, possibly Turkey.

What crucial question has no 1 always asked you on the topics we are talking about, and what is the answer to them?

Why should an average Polish citizen not trust on the European Union for defence matters, and what should be demanded of decision-makers in this regard? The answer is: erstwhile a crisis begins, the European Union will surely not defend us, the peripheral state, so all Polish citizen should be curious in strengthening the Polish state. We cannot delegate our safety to allies and we cannot donate the Polish arms manufacture to western capital.

Thank you for talking to me.