National Expectations Regarding the European Defence Fund: The Polish Perspective

The European Defence Fund is largely seen in Poland through the prism of the complementarity of recent EU defence initiatives with NATO. Focused on strengthening NATO’s deterrence and defence against Russia, Poland would like to see the EU helping in improving the overall military capacity of European members of NATO in the long run. Hence the expectation, that the EDF will support programs, addressing some key capability gaps, identified in NATO. To that aim, the EDF – together with PESCO – should also be made relatively easily accessible for non-EU NATO members. The EDF is also seen as a chance for Poland’s own Defence Technological and Industrial Base, suffering from structural inefficiencies. Prospective EDF programs are understood as offering an opportunity for Polish firms to develop technologies, skills and know-how through a different mechanism, than offsets, still considered the primary way of technology transfer to Poland…