Tusk: We will not invest in foreign equipment indefinitely
We will not invest Polish money in foreign equipment indefinitely, said Prime Minister Donald Tusk after a briefing with the heads of military research institutes.
„Our security in the near future and in the longer term will depend primarily on what is born in our minds. Today, wars are won by smarter, better-equipped, more technologically advanced armies, armies that can use the latest technology, whether it be artificial intelligence or drones” - said the prime minister, who visited the Air Force Institute of Technology in Warsaw on Wednesday.
"Change the proportions"
“An army that wants to win future conflicts and effectively defend its territory and the safety of its citizens must be technologically ahead of its competitors” - he added.
He expressed his appreciation for the “extremely competent staff,” which consists of “not only institute heads, but also young engineers, programmers, and IT specialists”.
“From the Polish point of view, it is absolutely crucial that the hundreds of billions of zlotys that we want to spend on defense - both Polish taxpayer money and European money - work to the maximum extent possible in Poland” - the prime minister said.
„Probably in no other area of economic or social life does the word ‘repolonization’ have such fundamental significance as in the Polish army and our defense. We will fundamentally change the proportions,“ he declared. He added that ”there is no reason“ to prefer foreign equipment that is comparable in quality to that developed by ”Polish companies, Polish scientific institutes, Polish engineers, and Polish scientists”.
Money for own economy
„This money must also feed the Polish economy and Polish science. That is why I am announcing a fundamental change in the proportions of expenditure. Enough money has gone to investing in companies that operate outside Poland; we have enough companies and talented engineers to redirect this flow from abroad to Polish companies and Polish research institutes,” he said. He noted that using domestic components in our own designs is also a matter of security.
He drew attention to dual-use projects so that, as he said, the efforts of ITWL employees and other institutes would also serve civilian and economic purposes. In this context, he mentioned an unmanned aerial vehicle called Kleszcz. “It’s not a big drone, but it can be very useful for both civilian and military purposes” - he said.
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