Annex H: Poland

Poland is the seventh largest defence spender in the EU and has exhibited steady growth in defence spending since 2014, with a 10 per cent real terms increase in the defence budget in 2018. In 2018 this stood at 2 per cent of GDP, and the government has legislated to increase spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP by 2030, reflecting Poland's commitment to collective defence and crisis response within the EU, NATO and UN frameworks. As a participant of the EU's PESCO initiative, Poland has also pledged to allocate 20 per cent of its total defence expenditure to defence investment and is subject to the NATO Defence Investment Pledge included in the NATO Wales Summit declaration that asks for the allocation of at least 20 per cent of the defence budget to the procurement of major new equipment.

While Poland's defence industry experienced significant disruption and eventual consolidation after the Cold War, over recent years it has again undergone a series of mergers. This restructuring reflects an effort to promote greater efficiency and competitiveness, but also an evolution in government policy due to the emergence of threats on the country's eastern border, re-emphasising the role of the national defence industry in Poland's defence policy, capability planning and the search for reindustrialisation of the wider economy. Furthermore, the importance of economic actors, or the 'industrial defence potential' that includes the state's ability to produce defence equipment, is highlighted in the Strategy of Development of the National Security System 2022 as one of the key 'determinants of the state's sovereignty.'