Poland announces €427 million investment in ammunition production

The Polish government will establish a 2 billion zloty (€427 million) programme to encourage state and private enterprises to invest in ammunition production in response to growing demand amid the war in neighbouring Ukraine. Poland’s efforts to ramp up production this week received EU backing.

“After the last few months of reviewing the battlefield in Ukraine, we and our allies have almost full knowledge of how much ammunition is being used daily, weekly and monthly,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday. “These are quantities many times greater than those available to most NATO countries today.”

According to the US Defence Department, Ukraine uses around 90,000 artillery rounds a month, twice as much as the production of the US and European countries combined, the New York Times reported in January.

“The Ukrainian army uses about 90,000 artillery rounds a month, about twice the rate they are being manufactured by the United States and European countries combined… The rest must come from other sources, including existing stockpiles or commercial sales.”

— Franz-Stefan Gady (@HoansSolo) January 18, 2023

“We encourage state-owned companies, as well as private entities and proven entities from abroad, to develop production capacities in Poland,” said Morawiecki, pledging that up to 2 billion zlotys will be allocated to support those efforts

The programme is to involve the Polish Development Fund (PFR), a state-owned financial group, whose task will be to help ammunition plants wishing to increase or start production to create business plans.

Poland already produces ammunition for, among other things, the Polish-made 155-mm Krab self-propelled howitzers, of which it has already sold 60 to Ukraine in a record deal in June last year, after handing over 18 of them as part of military aid a month earlier.

Yesterday’s announcement came just a few days after Poland joined other European countries in an ammunition purchase scheme. It also followed a visit to Poland by the EU’s internal market commissioner, Thierry Breton, who is overseeing European efforts to ramp up ammunition production.

During Breton’s visit, Morawiecki announced that Poland would receive the most funds from the European Peace Facility (EPF), established in 2021, for the purchase of ammunition and military equipment.

EU countries and Norway have pledged to transfer some of the ammunition purchased under the programme to Ukraine.

According to Morawicki, Poland had successfully secured more than one billion zlotys and he pledged “there will be billions more from European funds for the purchase and production of munitions”, reports Business Insider Polska

Poland has been increasing defence spending and production in recent years in the face of growing fears of Russia. Those efforts were further boosted last year after Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Warsaw subsequently increased its defence budget to 3% of GDP – one of the highest levels in NATO – and has pledged to raise that to 4% this year.

Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

Alicja Ptak

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.