Upon his return from the Brussels summit, Donald Tusk confidently announced that he had secured EU leaders' approval for co-financing the 'flagship defense projects,' including the Eastern Shield and the Sky Shield. However, media reports suggest a stark contrast to Tusk's claims.
OKO.press, a known (on the Polish market) news portal, has revealed that the delegations involved in the negotiations view the Polish Prime Minister's statement as a significant overinterpretation of the summit’s outcomes.
During the press conference, he stated that "Poland has achieved 100 percent of what it expected in terms of defense projects."
On June 27, the day the summit began, the heads of government of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia sent a letter to the European Commission requesting the EU co-financing the implementation of the Eastern Shield project (fortifications on the EU's eastern border). A similar request concerned the European anti-aircraft shield project prepared with Greece, i.e., the defense of the European sky.
According to Donald Tusk (he refers to himself as "Better Donald"), the dispute on this issue was "very heated," but "Poland managed to mobilize practically all the other countries, and we pushed through this idea."
According to OKO.press, however, the truth is slightly less optimistic than PM Tusk's version. "The record in the conclusions (of the summit) is very general and does not indicate financing from EU funds for specific defense investments."
Several delegations to the summit also reported that Donald Tusk overstated the meeting results. While Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung simply reports:
"German Chancellor Olaf Scholz opposed joint arms purchases at the EU summit, rejecting the demands of Poles and Balts."
This did not escape the attention of former Minister of Defence Mariusz Błaszczak (PiS):
"Only Tusk can lie twice about the same matter. First, he stated that the border strengthening program, the implementation of which began during the Law and Justice government, was his idea. Then, he announced that he had arranged EU financing for its implementation. Both lies were quickly exposed. "The highest level of mythomania," – says his post on X.
