President Karol Nawrocki’s decision to veto the law implementing the SAFE mechanism in Poland has opened a new chapter in the political dispute over defence financing. In his Thursday address, the president announced that he would not sign the law that would have allowed Poland to access funds from the EU’s Security Action for Europe instrument. The stakes were enormous: Poland was expected to be the largest beneficiary of the programme, with around €43.7 billion from the overall EU package worth up to €150 billion.
SAFE is not a grant scheme, but a system of long-term, competitively priced loans designed to help EU member states rapidly increase defence spending, above all through joint procurement of military equipment. The programme was established as one of the pillars of the EU strategy to strengthen Europe’s defence industry and formally entered into force on 29 May 2025. From Warsaw’s perspective, it was an especially attractive instrument, as it offered access to substantial financing for military modernisation, border protection, and security systems.
The president justified his veto mainly on grounds of sovereignty and financial risk. According to him, SAFE would mean that Poland takes on long-term foreign debt in a foreign currency, while the cost of servicing such liabilities could be very high. Nawrocki also argued that Brussels could gain excessive influence over how the money is spent, and that the mechanism itself raises constitutional concerns. At the same time, the president has been promoting his own concept of a “Polish SAFE at 0%,” based on domestic financing sources and without reliance on an EU loan.
Donald Tusk’s government sees the matter in exactly the opposite way. Even before the veto, the prime minister said that Poland could obtain “nearly 200 billion zlotys” from SAFE, and he described blocking the law as a mistake in the current geopolitical situation. After the president’s decision, the government did not announce that it was giving up on EU funds; instead, it launched an emergency alternative. On Friday morning, Tusk announced the adoption of a resolution under which the “Polska Zbrojna” programme is to be implemented, while admitting that without the law the process will be “more difficult” and “slower.”
This is where the most important clarification appears: it cannot honestly be said today that Poland will definitively and irrevocably not make use of SAFE. What can be said, however, is that the presidential veto blocked the statutory, simplest, and politically clearest route to using those funds. The government claims it has a Plan B, but the presidential camp has already replied that any attempt to circumvent the veto outside the legislative framework would be unlawful. This means that one thing is certain for now: Poland will not use SAFE in the form prepared by the government and passed by parliament, while the future of those funds depends on whether the cabinet can build an alternative mechanism that is legally effective.
Politically, this is one of the most serious clashes between the Presidential Palace and the government on security matters. For the president, SAFE has become a symbol of defending Poland against excessive dependence on EU mechanisms. For the government, it is a test of the state’s credibility and of its ability to secure funding for armaments quickly at a time of mounting threats in Europe. The result is that instead of a smooth launch of the largest pool of defence loans in Europe for Poland, the country now faces a political and legal dispute over whether it will still manage to access those funds on terms close to those originally envisaged.
