Poland and the United States underlined their friendship this month by signing an agreement on the biggest military package in Europe in years — and the most substantial ever in former communist Eastern Europe.
The deal confirms Warsaw as a pivotal member of US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s pro-American ”new Europe”, as opposed to the ”old Europeans”, led by France and Germany, who were against war in Iraq.
At a ceremony at an airbase south of Warsaw, the Poles signed up to purchase 48 American fighter jets from the Lockheed Martin Corporation at a cost of $3,5-billion — contracts that have infuriated the French and brought complaints from Brussels that Poland, which joins the European Union next year, is acting disloyally.
Embattled Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller, running a minority government and presiding over economic distress and unemployment at 20%, hailed the April 18 agreement as the opening of a new phase in the ever closer relationship with the US.
Apart from the British, the Poles were the only Europeans to join the US in combat in Iraq. Despite European demands for the United Nations to oversee Iraq’s reconstruction, the Poles are lining up behind the US, lobbying for business, debt repayment, and a role in post-war Iraq.
Poland is the most important of the East European states to have joined Nato and be about to enter the EU, but the transatlantic feuding over Iraq and Bush administration policy has seen it opting decisively to back the US.
The $3,5-billion cost of the 48 F-16 Fighting Falcons comes cheaply for the Poles because of unusually generous American terms that will leave the US taxpayer footing much of the bill for years to come.
The deal entails an investment of more than $6-billion in the Polish economy, much in the form of pledges to buy Polish goods. These additional investment pledges tied to the aircraft deal, or ”offset”, are frowned on officially by the US administration and by the World Trade Organisation since they distort free trade.
But with much at stake the US overlooked its objections and Congress offered a direct 100% loan to the Poles. With a low interest loan and no need to repay any principal for eight years, the US government is, in effect, paying Lockheed Martin to supply Poland with the aircraft from 2006.
The deal came within 48 hours of Poland and seven other East European countries signing accession treaties at the Athens summit admitting them to the EU a year from now. — Â