The Security and Defence Fund has formally and irreversibly become part of the Polish National Recovery and Resilience Plan! Poland as the first country in Europe to invest European funds in security! - Deputy Minister of Development Funds and Regional Policy, Jan Szyszko wrote on the X platform.

The EU Council's approval of the amendments to the Polish NRP will enable the disbursement of the third tranche of money for Poland. We assume that more than PLN 26 billion (from the fourth and fifth request for payment) will be transferred to Poland in August.

Security and Defence Fund

At the end of May this year, the European Commission provisionally accepted the revision of the Polish NRP, which envisages in particular the creation of the Security and Defence Fund (PLN 25 billion). The money from the fund will be allocated for reinforcement of Poland's defence and security capabilities.

SDF funds will finance:

• infrastructure and sectors related to dual-use products and technologies (e.g. mobility, secure communication systems);
• infrastructure necessary for the protection of the population and critical infrastructure (e.g. shelters, depots and storage facilities, medical care facilities, protection of power grids);
• products, e.g.: engineering equipment, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, ICT solutions, etc.;
• services, e.g. for terrestrial and satellite communication;
• research, development and implementation work, e.g.: innovative technological solutions for monitoring and observation, communication, data analysis, decision-making support, use of autonomous systems (drones);
• subsidising the production capacity of Polish companies, including the modernisation of companies in the military and security sector;
• cyber security, particularly for local authorities.

Approximately 50 per cent of the fund will be available to finance activities at the local authority level.

The FBO will have the opportunity to invest within the support areas of the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) Regulation, including economic resilience and competitiveness, green and digital transformation.

Revision of the NRP

Due to the revision of the NRP, a guarantee fund is to be set up so that small and medium-sized companies can receive loans for investments that they might not get under market conditions. More than PLN 670 million of collateral from the NRP funds will be earmarked for guarantees, which are expected to translate into PLN 10 billion in loans to companies.

The revision also includes a reform strengthening the State Labour Inspection (PIP), which shall gain tools to enforce workers' rights.

The revision also introduces subsidies for tachograph replacement for small businesses with less than 15 cars (we plan to have more than 100 thousand devices) and doubles the number of insulated schools with NRP funding (to 492 schools).

NRP for Poland

The National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRP) consists of 57 investments and 54 reforms and is expected to strengthen the Polish economy.

Poland shall receive PLN 255 billion (EUR 59.8 billion) from the NRP, including EUR 25.27 billion in grants and EUR 34.54 billion in preferential loans. So far, Poland has received PLN 67 billion from three NRP requests for payment submitted.