Polish Ministry of Defence Presents the 2016 Budget. “Technological modernization plan - 20% increase, in comparison with 2015”.

During the meeting on 5th January, the Parliamentary Defence Commission has been working on the 2016 budgetary bill, including, above all, the budget of the Ministry of Defence. The bill was described and presented by the Polish Deputy Minister of Defence Bartosz Kownacki, together with the Director of the MoD’s Budgetary Department, General Sławomir Pączek. On the basis of the GDP value achieved in 2015, the MoD’s budget in 2016 is expected to be contained in an amount of PLN 35 898 740 000. This constitutes a 9% increase, comparing the value to the one characterizing the defence expenditure last year.

Increase of the budget, in an amount of PLN 2.9 billion has been allocated, in its greatest part – PLN 1.9 billion – to realize the Technological Modernization, and to increase the material procurement. 179 million zlotys are going to mainly be used to cover acquisition of the ordnance. (...) The Technological Modernization Plan which – financially speaking – constitutes a 20% increase, in comparison with 2015.

The most important modernization tasks planned to be realized in 2016, meaning conclusion of agreements and implementation, include: “Wisła” programme [Medium Range Air Defence - Ed.], Homar Multiple Rocket Launch Systems division, 120 mm “Rak” module, “Pilica” Rocket Artillery [Short Range Air Defence - Ed.] system, two patrol vesseels: “Czapla” and “Miecznik”; Battalion level Battlefield Management System, “Rosomak BMS”; BMS with a key value for numerous other systems, and C4IS system; “Orlik” tactical short range UAV and “Wizjer” mini UAV, a fuel tanker and multi-role helicopters.

As we can see, the new leadership of the Polish Ministry of Defence plans to finalize the most important modernization programmes initiated by the previous government, however a relevant revision and audit of the assumptions is also going to be carried out, as Minister Bartosz Kownacki suggested. Such steps are going to be taken in the light of the revision of the technological modernization plan, which would be carried out anyway, in line with the long-term assumptions.

How does the technological modernization programme look like? How is it related to the current threats? (...) The plan will have to be changed, since such threat analyses were not being carried out by the previous government, in order to make it possible for us to create a response, in a form of a modernization programme for the Polish Army. It must constitute a response to those threats, and it should be dependent on direction of those threats. In the light of the above, natural changes of all of the modernization programmes will have to be carried out.

Kownacki stressed that the most important programmes, including the procurement of the multi-role helicopters, acquisition of the unmanned aerial vehicles, or the programme concerning the “Wisła” medium range anti-aircraft and anti-missile system, are going to be treated with the highest degree of attention.

When it comes to the “Wisła” system, we have reached the proper stage of assessing its capability of providing a proper level of security. We should assess effectiveness, price and the economic dimension of the individual initiatives, since the latter issue was not being covered by our Ministry for a long time now. This is because of the fact that even the most perfect anti-missile defence system would not solve other problems faced by Poland. And the “Wisła” programme is going to be also considered within that context.

When it comes to the unmanned aerial vehicles, these programmes shall be, continued indeed, however, assessments shall be made pertaining the involvement of the Polish economy, and the scope and source of procurement – what should be acquired from our foreign partners? Each of those programmes may be assessed only after the threats are assessed, and after it is assessed whether the Polish army is ready today. I really do hope that a very interesting meeting of the Defence Commission, within that scope, will take place. At least in the scope we may refer to, you will learn about the assessment of the modernization programme.