As of March 11, 2026, it would not be accurate to write that the government’s SAFE plan has already definitively collapsed or that the president’s proposal has already been adopted. Formally, the law implementing the EU SAFE mechanism has been passed by parliament and is awaiting the president’s decision, while the presidential bill for “Polish SAFE 0%” has only just been submitted to the Sejm. Still, it is already possible to argue that, politically, the centre of gravity in the debate is shifting toward a national defence fund.

Until recently, the issue seemed all but settled: Poland would make use of the EU’s SAFE programme and finance the next wave of military modernisation through it. The government argued that the stakes were unprecedented — more than €43.7 billion, or nearly PLN 200 billion, a significant share of which was expected to reach the Polish defence industry. The law establishing the domestic framework for this mechanism was approved by the Council of Ministers on February 11 and then passed by parliament at the end of February.

Today, however, the political picture looks different. President Karol Nawrocki has not yet signed the law implementing the EU SAFE mechanism and, on March 10, submitted his own bill to the Sejm establishing the Polish Defence Investment Fund. This proposal is meant to embody the idea of “Polish SAFE 0%” and serve as a domestic alternative to financing based on an EU loan. The very fact that the bill has been formally introduced means that the dispute has moved beyond media rhetoric and entered the stage of a real contest between two different models of funding defence spending.

The Presidential Palace argues that the new mechanism could generate around PLN 200 billion over four to five years without depleting the National Bank of Poland’s reserves. The fund would operate within Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego, with the money earmarked for the technical modernisation of the Polish Armed Forces and other tasks aimed at strengthening state security. Politically, this is a powerful proposal: it allows the presidential camp to argue that Poland does not need to tie strategic defence spending to an EU loan that would be repaid for decades if it can instead create its own national financial instrument.

That does not yet mean full agreement on the government’s side. Quite the opposite — after meeting with the president, Donald Tusk openly said that the proposal amounted in practice to “SAFE zero zlotys,” while Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz argued the next day that the project was weaker than earlier announcements and based on NBP profit that would in any case flow into the state budget. From the perspective of day-to-day politics, then, it is clear that no compromise has yet been reached.

And yet something important has already happened. Only a few weeks ago, it was the government that defined the terms of the debate: SAFE was meant to be the obvious technical instrument for securing funding for defence. Today, the centre of the dispute has shifted elsewhere. It is no longer just the government asking how quickly the EU mechanism can be implemented; it now also has to answer why Poland should choose an expensive external loan when there is a proposal on the table for a national defence fund, presented as interest-free and more sovereign. The change in the very axis of the debate is, in itself, a political success for the president.

In that sense, one can say that the government’s idea has clearly lost momentum, while the initiative has moved to the side of the Presidential Palace. Formally, SAFE has not yet collapsed, but politically it has ceased to be the only obvious path forward. If the president is delaying his signature, presenting his own bill, and forcing the government to justify the advantages of the EU mechanism over a Polish fund, then the centre of the debate has truly shifted. Today, more than it seemed only a few days ago, a scenario appears plausible in which Poland reaches a broad — though not necessarily conflict-free — consensus in favour of building its own mechanism for financing defence. The government may still defend SAFE, but it is the president’s proposal that now sets the tone of the entire discussion.