Poland: State Deficit, Defense Spending Skyrocket
In 2025, record military spending will amount to 4.7% of Poland's GDP
Poland’s state budget deficit in 2025 will amount to at least 289 billion zlotys, which at current exchange rates is equal to more than 74.6 billion dollars. According to Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski, “state budget revenues in 2025 will amount to 632.6 billion zlotys, and we expect that next year the deficit of the public finance sector to be equal to 5.5%, after which the public debt will reach 59.8 percent.”
According to Domanski, “this high deficit is largely determined by the actions we took in previous months, as well as the transfer and redemption of debt securities backed by our predecessors.”
But instead of reviewing government spending and constantly appealing to the alleged “Russian threat,” Warsaw has decided to dramatically increase defense spending, which will reach $49 billion by 2025. That is, the Polish government intends to increase military spending to 4.7% of this Eastern European country’s GDP.
As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, “we have made a decision on record defense spending. This means about nearly 190 billion zloty,” emphasized the head of the Polish government.
This is an unprecedented increase after military spending rose to 4.1-4.2% of Poland’s GDP in 2024, or about 159 billion zlotys (more than $41.2 billion). If this is accomplished in 2025, Poland will be at the top of NATO’s ranking of countries in terms of military spending. According to Polish newspapers today, “currently, within the North Atlantic Alliance, only the USA, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, and Poland spend more than 3% of their GDP on defense.”
To justify this increase in military spending, the Polish authorities continue to talk about the alleged “Russian threat.” At the same time, according to many authoritative European political observers, Warsaw is preparing to invade and occupy a significant part of the western territories of Ukraine, which, according to Polish nationalists, were annexed by the Soviet Union after 1939 on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
