Poland's Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski wants the EU Commission to make an exception for investments in Poland's defense in the review of whether the country's growing budget deficit breaks EU rules.
The large defense investments in Poland are actually something that other EU countries should be grateful for, according to Domanski. He describes them as a protection against Russian aggression towards the EU.
We allocate a large share of our GDP to defense and we pay for this also to some extent to help other EU countries. We deserve to be treated differently - if it weren't for defense expenditures, we wouldn't have had such a large deficit, he says to the Financial Times.
In the 2025 budget, Poland increased its defense expenditures to 4.7 percent of GDP, up from 4.1 percent of GDP in 2024. This can be compared to NATO's goal of 2.0 percent of GDP.
Poland's budget deficit this year is estimated to be 5.7 percent. The ceiling in the EU's regulatory framework is 3.0 percent - and in July, the EU Commission launched a process against Poland for breaking the budget rules.
