Poland may redirect EU funds towards defense, minister says

PHOTO CAPTION: Illustrative photo of Polish service members via Grey Dynamics

WARSAW (Reuters) -     Poland will review its Recovery and Resilience Plan with a view to redirecting funds towards defence and economic resilience, Polish Funds Minister Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz said on Tuesday. 

The minister said last month that EU funds should be redirected from the EU recovery facility to security. The EU's recovery facility provides Poland with nearly 60 billion euros ($63.1 billion) in grants and cheap loans.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk later said Pelczynska-Nalecz had told him that she was working on releasing up to 30 billion zlotys ($7.6 billion) to shift these funds to "broadly understood defence and defence industry". 

"This will require urgent and full cooperation of other ministries," Tusk said ahead of a government sitting.

He also said works on a bill on public investments in defence needed to speed up and that the bill could possibly be adopted by the government next week. 

($1 = 0.9512 euros)

($1 = 3.9509 zlotys)

 (Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Pawel Florkiewicz, editing by Ed Osmond)