President Karol Nawrocki said on Thursday he was vetoing a law implementing the European Union’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defense loan program in Poland, arguing it could undermine the country’s sovereignty and burden future generations with debt.
Andrzej Derlatka, a former head of Poland’s Internal Security Agency (ABW) and a former ambassador to South Korea, said in a media interview on Friday that Nawrocki’s veto was largely the result of Kaczyński’s anti-European and anti-German policies.
Nawrocki, a Eurosceptic conservative, became president last year with the backing of Kaczyński. He narrowly defeated pro-EU centrist Rafał Trzaskowski, who was supported by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Speaking on state broadcaster TVP Info, Derlatka said Nawrocki’s decision to block Poland’s access to low-interest EU defense loans ran counter to the country’s national interests.
The veto prompted an extraordinary Cabinet meeting Friday and added to tensions between Tusk’s government and the conservative opposition.
Tusk said that after Nawrocki’s decision, Moscow was "the only capital in Europe" where newspaper headlines were favorable toward the Polish president, suggesting the veto served Russian interests more than Poland’s.
Derlatka went further, directing his criticism at Kaczyński, who leads the right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023.
He accused PiS of long stoking public anxieties about Germany and the EU as part of its political strategy and warned that repeated attacks on Germany could leave Poland isolated at a time of growing security risks.
“Either Kaczyński is an idiot or a traitor if he says this kind of nonsense, that Germany is our enemy,” Derlatka said. “That would mean Poland is supposed to stand alone if some kind of turmoil comes.”
He noted that Germany is one of Poland’s key allies through both NATO and the European Union and argued that practical help for Poland in a crisis would be difficult without German support.
'What Kaczyński is doing is treason'
"If someone attacks Germany, our ally, they are in fact strengthening forces in Germany that are hostile to us," Derlatka said.
“Doing that from such a high level as the leader of the former ruling party is harmful to Poland. It is deadly for Poland. What Kaczyński is doing is treason.”
Derlatka also alleged, without providing evidence, that Russian agents had "infiltrated the PiS leadership."
The dispute comes as Poland increases defense spending and seeks to strengthen alliances amid the threat posed by Russia's war against Ukraine.