The North Atlantic Treaty limits the financing of investments in the country. The Ministry of National Defence (MON) wonders how to save the situation. The General Staff estimated that the NATO Security Investment Programme (NSIP) is going to hand cut up to 40 per cent payment for implemented projects this year. Last year's dues for the work has already ended up in construction firms with a delay.

This is a serious problem, because Poland is the NATO's largest construction site. Companies will have to make money (750 million euros) from allied construction in the country by 2014.
Problems with financing investments are the result of the crisis, which forced savings upon the alliance, but also the result of the increased NATO's expenditure on operation in Afghanistan.

Ministry of National Defence is going to seek for a solution that would ensure the continuation of the modernization of strategic bases and would spare entrepreneurs involved in the trouble - Col. Wieslaw Grzegorzewski, director of the Press and Information Department in MON said.
NATO ends the modernization of seven military airfields, two military airports, the creation of five huge fuel bases (the aim is to build 12 bases for 400 mln PLN) and six strategic long-range radar stations in Poland. Modern air defense command posts are to be created in Poznan, Warsaw and Bydgoszcz, and in Wladyslawowo - signal centre for coalition warships.

Delivering the IT equipment to the newly built Joint Force Training Centre in Bydgoszcz is likely to be completed this year. 73 compounds worth nearly 1.4 billion PLN have already been built and distributed for use as the part of creating a base to strengthen the NATO forces in Poland. This is slightly more than half of all planned (in a single package) investments worth 2.3 billion PLN. Will they be finished? Extension of the naval base worth over 200 mln PLN in Swinoujscie was finished with delay just a few weeks ago. However, the cuts in NSIP probably preclude the modernization of major airport in Minsk Mazowiecki, building a powerful fuel base in Porażyno or upgrading one of the main command and guidance centers of the air force in the center of Poland.

If NATO maintained a saving policy, the plans to further equip the airports in Powidz and Lask in the new installation, increasing their logistic and defensive capabilities, would disappear. There is no telling how our efforts to create a communication battalion to support the coalition defense institutions in Bydgoszcz would also end up. The Alliance spent nearly 640 million euros for defensive investment in the NATO's area last year. Much of the NSIP's funds went to the youngest of the Member States: Bulgaria, Romania and the Baltic countries.

Monika Skarzynska

PHOTO: ISIFA