Polish President: Air-Defence and Anti-Missile Defence – Top Priority

After the meeting of the Polish National Security Council, the President referred to the modernization programme of the Polish Armed Forces. In his opinion creating the air-defence and anti-missile defence systems should be treated as the highest priority.

I would like to stress the fact that the Council unanimously accepted the fact that creating an independent air-defence and anti-missile defence systems in Poland shall be treated as the top priority. We have discussed this problem within several dimensions, as well as in the light of the information about subsequent changes in the security environment of Poland, and other countries located in our region.

During the meeting of the NSC, programme related to creation of the air defence system has also been discussed in the light of the information on “subsequent changes” in the Polish, and regional security environment as well. According to the press release of the President’s Office, President Komorowski considered continuing the implementation of the Newport summit requirements to be of substantial value.

During the meeting of the council, a plan of action regarding the strategic dimension of the Polish security has also been presented and accepted.. This plans includes “Kraj 2015” (State 2015) exercise, which would test the crisis management capabilities of the national security system. It is stressed that the related activities will be carried out in both military, and beyond-military dimension as well.

Earlier it has been stated that the assumptions behind the plan of activity aiming at improving the Poland’s safety include, among other issues, reinforcement of the military units, which are stationed in the eastern part of the country. Development of a relevant document has been planned by the Polish Prime Minister.

President Komorowski also referred to the issue of increasing the defence spending up to the level of 2% of GDP. He stated that works on a “relevant statutory act” are currently in progress.

One of the basic arrangements made by the NSC is a suggestion, that we should, by shared effort, also by contacting the opposition, create a plan of minimum scope of shared effort which would improve the Polish national security system, e.g. by accepting the statutory regulation, which would use 2% of GDP for defence purposes, starting from 2016.

The Polish President also requested, as we can see above, to create, also in cooperation with the opposition a “minimum plan” which would aim at realizing the national security strategy,  e.g. through creating legal regulations which would make it possible to allocate 2% of GDP to the defence purposes, starting from 2016.