Polish foreign minister Radosław Sikorski says NATO could soon outspend Russia by 17-1 on defence if members of the alliance hit the 5 per cent GDP target on defence procurement.
He also said Russia would not rule central and eastern Europe while speaking at a debate on foreign policy in Poland’s parliament on April 23.
The foreign minister attacked the Conservative (PiS) opposition and supported the presidential campaign of Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition candidate Rafał Trzaskowski.
Sikorski targeted the Kremlin over what he called its “fantasies of dominance”, harking back to an age when it controlled central and eastern Europe
“You will never rule here ever again; not in Kyiv, not in Vilnius, not in Riga, not in Tallinn, not în Chișinău! … worry about keeping Chajzenwaj [Chinese name for Vladivostok],” he said.
Sikorski claimed Poland, NATO and the European Union were gearing up to increase military spending and claimed that Warsaw’s membership of both organisations enhanced rather than limited Polish sovereignty.
“It provides access to mechanisms of cooperation which allow for more co-ordinated actions. We are better prepared for difficult times than we would have been as a single island outside the military, political and economic structures,” he argued.
Sikorski claimed that “the financial might of NATO countries’ budgets, which already allocate nearly $1.5 trillion [€1.32 trillion], already dwarf Russia’s war capability” by a factor of 10-1. He said this would rise to 17-1 should all members reach the 5 per cent of GDP defence spending – a target Poland was already committed to reaching in 2026.
He urged Germany to do more for Europe’s security, telling parliament that he was concerned about “German reluctance to rearm more than German military power”. That echoed his words of a decade ago when he told a Berlin audience that he feared a lack of German leadership more than its dominance in Europe.
Sikorski said Poland wanted to defend transatlantic ties but, in an allusion to stances taken by US President Donald Trump’s administration and Russia’s actions, he said he saw “deeply troubling” developments. They included the “weakening of multilateral institutions in favour of transactional bilateralism” that meant the West was in danger of becoming disunited.
Sikorski attacked the Polish opposition PiS over its eight years in office (2015-2023), which he claimed had reduced Poland’s significance in the EU and compared that administration with the Tusk government he claimed was increasing Poland’s role and standing in global affairs
“Today’s international order, with the EU and NATO at its core, offers us something we often lacked in the past: agency, real influence on European and global policy,” he said.
“Polish diplomacy must focus on reinforcing these institutions rather than questioning their legitimacy,” he added.
He rejected the PiS’ claims that Poland was in danger of losing control of its own defence policies if it prioritised European defence initiatives over NATO. Sikorski argued that European initiatives would, in fact, enhance collective security.
At the end of his speech, Sikorski repeated the campaign slogan of the Civic Coalition presidential candidate, Rafał Trzaskowski: “Poland Forward.”
That led to criticism from the PiS allied President Andrzej Duda who said: “The minister has, in effect, reduced everything to party politics by using the slogan of one of the presidential candidates.
“It’s unfortunate that such a partisan slogan was used, and it’s a shame that we had to witness so many political jabs throughout the speech today,” he said.
The PiS was highly critical of Sikorski’s remarks with former prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki saying in a post on social media he was “appalled by minister Sikorski’s speech”.
“They want to hand over our security to European bureaucrats! We will never allow Poland’s safety to be decided by countries that spent years doing business with Russia and disarming their own militaries.
“Stop paying off your political debts at the expense of Poland’s security,” added Morawiecki.
The right-wing Confederation party was also critical of Sikorski’s address. Its leader Krzysztof Bosak called the speech “a triumph of polemics over policy” and said it was “playing on people’s fears about Poland being left on its own”.
Poland elects a new president on May 18 but, with the polls having tightened, the contest seemed certain to go to a run-off between the top two candidates, scheduled for June 1.
