The Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, upon his arrival at the EU summit, at the headquarters of the European Council in Brussels, on January 22, 2026. PHOTO: Omar Havana / AP / Profimedia
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned on Wednesday that there is a “real risk” that Poland will leave the European Union due to internal struggles, caused by his confrontations with President Karol Nawrocki, which ultimately risks leading to the “destabilization” of Europe, informs the Spanish news agency EFE.
“Basically, there is a real risk – and I'm talking about facts, not assumptions – that Poland will leave the European Union,” the Polish Prime Minister said in a press conference in Warsaw after a meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The “useless, senseless and harmful political confrontation between the government and the presidency” is not only “stupidity or ill will”, but “an attempt to destabilize the whole of Europe, an attempt to limit the role of Poland in the European Union”, stressed Donald Tusk, according to Agerpres.
Opposition accuses SAFE funds of 'a huge scam'
With these statements, Tusk was referring to the opposition's criticism of the European defense funds SAFE, which the leaders of the main opposition party, Law and Justice (PiS), consider “a huge scam that links military purchases to German and French industry”.
According to Mariusz Blaszczak, incumbent at the Ministry of Defense during the period when the Law and Justice party was in power, these purchases generate 'debts that are difficult to pay and lack transparency'.
Tusk cites 'a direct threat to national security'
Tusk emphasized that the opposition, both from the Law and Justice party and that of President Karol Nawrocki, ideologically aligned with this ultraconservative party, “represents a direct threat to national security and the stability of the country.”
Nawrocki, whose signature is key to approving Poland's membership of the SAFE programme, has voiced his opposition to Brussels' defense loan programme, calling it “a lifeline for the German economy”, and said a significant part of arms purchases made with European money “end up in foreign hands”.
If the Polish president vetoes joining SAFE, as he has done in the past with major defense laws such as a cybersecurity law, parliament could override it with three-fifths of the vote (276), but Tusk's coalition does not have enough seats (248) to do so.
For his part, the defense minister from Tusk's coalition, Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz, defended the urgency of these European funds on Wednesday and insisted that the state budget is insufficient to cover the modernization needs of the Polish army.
Regarding the financial burden, Kosiniak-Kamysz said it is “certain” that in the future the EU will decide to write off part of the debts for the loans granted under the SAFE programme.
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