SAFE is 1 of the most important, if not the most crucial financial mechanics launched in fresh years by the European Union. Poland is expected to be the largest beneficiary of the pool of around EUR 150 billion of low-interest defence loans to EU countries. He'll get about a 3rd of all the resources. The first step has already been taken. The European Commission has accepted our country's applications for backing for almost EUR 44 billion. Now we are waiting for the approval of the Council of Europe, after which debt agreements can be concluded, if the country afraid has legal mechanisms to absorb specified EU measures. The Polish Act on this substance should have passed the legislative way long ago, so that we do not lose a day to strengthen security.
Thanks to low-interest loans, associate States have the chance to importantly accelerate the modernisation of their own armed forces and to increase the capacity of defence industries, in peculiar in various types of ammunition. A fewer days ago The European Commission has announced that it has accepted 139 requests submitted by Poland for backing under the EU debt mechanics SAFE. They amount to EUR 43.7 billion, or about PLN 180 billion. This is truly large news for our country.
Yeah, I know that. SAFE program This is not an perfect solution, and the funds offered there are not gifts that will magically make our defence budgets grow, and factories producing cannons, tanks and ammunition will grow like mushrooms after rain. No, SAFE won't work that way. This is simply a complex financial mechanism, which has been constructed in a very simplistic way as any another credit, with the difference that we are taking a debt in leading global financial institutions under the name of the European Union. Since the EU is the guarantor of the loan, its interest rate will be much lower than that which we would be offered if we applied for specified a debt ourselves. The Union has negotiated not only a very low interest rate, but besides an highly long repayment period of 45 years and a 10-year extension. So we start paying off the SAFE loans in a decade, and we end in 2081!
What is Poland going to spend money on from SAFE? Although the exact list of 139 projects we have requested for backing is classified, respective items are not secret. The list included, among others, a fresh fighting Borsuk infantry car, the Krab cannonhaubica, Baobab overhead miner system, modular Grot rifles, 155 mm artillery ammunition, various types of mines and anti-aircraft systems, including Lightning missiles.
Why would you choose that? The answer is simple. These are products of the Polish arms industry, which, in the opinion of manufacture experts, are of large interest to another European armies, as they are interesting and modern weapons systems. Why is this interest so crucial for SAFE? Since the mechanics adopted in it promotes projects that will be implemented by at least 2 EU countries. Another crucial request to be met by countries seeking loans from SAFE is that the manufactured equipment should be made from components manufactured at least 65% in Europe.
The European Union has adopted such, alternatively than another restrictions on the SAFE programme, as it has 2 main objectives. The first, of course, is to strengthen the defence possible of the countries that will join and implement it. The second objective, in my opinion, is possibly the most important, and surely more important, than the individual purchases of arms and military equipment alone, to increase the production possible of the European armory. I realize that this is not only about manufacturing powers, but besides about technology and know-how.
The SAFE program is getting fast. Poland is just waiting for the Council of Europe to accept our proposals, and then it will be able to sign debt contracts. And I will admit that at this point I do not realize why our country has not yet adopted the appropriate financial and legal mechanisms to manage EU defence loans. If a peculiar bill is needed to establish a "special" institution to settle SAFE, due to the fact that it cannot be the Armed Forces Support Fund, then the Polish Parliament should have passed specified a bill a long time ago. There's truly nothing to wait for!
I hope that the hold in the work on the bill is only due to the concern that the government should contain appropriate "safes" to guarantee timely implementation of projects for which EU loans will be allocated. If there are delays or another faults, we can be certain that there will be no shortage of countries in the Union that will be happy to benefit from a pool of funds presently reserved for Poland. We have the treasure and now it is in our hands, but nothing is given forever and permanently.
