The EU’s infringement procedure "will be definitely launched" against Poland due to its excessive general government deficit, the country’s Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski has told reporters.
He expressed hope that the bloc’s "recommendations will be very mild” because Poland purportedly "invests in the security for the whole of the European Union,” which is why he said Warsaw needs to increase defense spending.
In the EU, if a country’s deficit is above 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), it is put under an excessive deficit procedure and must cut it by 0.5% annually. Domanski earlier said that military spending had driven up the deficit, explaining that, “4.1% of the GDP is the share we [Poland] spend on defense this year and next year it will be more."
According to Poland’s Ministry of Finance, the country’s high deficit is the result of the Ukraine conflict and Warsaw’s massive expenditure on modernizing the Polish Army.
Poland remains the sixth-largest country in terms of arms supplies to Ukraine, sending a whopping $3.2 billion, per the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German-based think tank.
Western countries ramped up military aid to the Kiev regime shortly after the beginning of the Russian special military operation. Russia has repeatedly warned that such assistance will only exacerbate the conflict.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, told the heads of international news agencies on the sidelines of last week’s 2024 St.Petersburg International Economic Forum that Moscow has the right to supply weapons to the regions from where strikes will be launched against “sensitive facilities” of those countries who deliver weapons to Ukraine.