Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of National Defence Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz announced on Monday, 9 November, that a request to allocate about PLN 1.5 billion in next year’s budget for non-military defence preparations of the Police and the Border Guard will be submitted to the Council of Ministers.
– A request will soon come before the Council of Ministers that about PLN 1.5 billion be allocated in next year’s budget for non-military defence preparations for the Police and the Border Guard – Kosiniak-Kamysz said on TVN24. He did not give a date for the government meeting.
Equipment and Recruitment in the Police
The minister also spoke about the need to modernise Police equipment, including providing officers with modern gear and long firearms. He stressed that it is important to maintain recruitment to the force.
On the same day, the ministry’s deputy head Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka spoke about the PLN 1.5 billion in next year’s MoD budget to support services subordinate to the Ministry of Interior and Administration (MSWiA). She added that further funds would flow to the services in the following years as well.
Where the Money Comes From: The Non-Military Defence Preparation Programme
The funds are to come from the budget of the Ministry of National Defence, under the non-military defence preparation programme. In May, Kosiniak-Kamysz announced an expansion of this programme, through a change to the regulation, so that it would finance the needs of the Border Guard, the Police and the infrastructure ministry. He said then that the MoD allocates at least PLN 5 billion a year to the programme.
The mechanism was developed after President Karol Nawrocki’s March veto of the act implementing the EU’s SAFE programme. The act provided for a special fund from which, among other things, the needs of uniformed services were to be financed. In May, the defence minister and the Minister of Interior and Administration, Marcin Kierwiński, announced that purchases for the Police, the Border Guard and the Government Protection Bureau (SOP), including helicopters and drone and counter-drone systems, would be financed from the state budget, and that SAFE would serve the military exclusively.
Where Things Stand
For now, this is an announcement: the request has not yet been submitted to the Council of Ministers, and the amount is approximate (“about PLN 1.5 billion”). As of publication, no division of funds between the Police and the Border Guard, nor a list of purchases, has been announced.
