WARSAW — Poland wants domestic companies to supply more of its rapidly expanding military, but state-owned PGZ’s fragmented structure and political exposure raise questions about whether Warsaw can turn the spending surge into a stronger industry.

The Polish Armaments Group, the country’s largest defense company, has won billions of złoty in new orders, placing it at the center of the military buildup.

The conglomerate was cobbled together in 2013 from about 50 fiercely independent smaller companies with their own management teams and often their own political backers. CEO Adam Leszkiewicz has been in the post since May 2025 — making him the holding company’s 12th CEO since its founding.

“PGZ is different from other European companies,” Leszkiewicz said, adding that PGZ makes more than 700 products. “I could say we make almost everything. But what can be a strength can also be a weakness.”

Marek Świerczyński, a defense analyst with the Warsaw-based Polityka Insight Center for Policy Analysis, said: “He essentially has to use diplomacy to try to manage the other companies.”

Legacy defense industry

For decades after the end of communism, Poland spent little on defense and the military largely made do with antiquated Soviet-era equipment. Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 changed that, and Polish defense spending surged.

“We have strong historical and current experience with armored vehicles and maintenance, repair and overhaul services,” said Leszkiewicz. “We also make wheeled vehicles such as the Jelcz, and our work on sensors and radar is developing well. We have long been strong in rifles and pistols.”

Aleksandra Kozioł, a defense analyst with the Warsaw-based Polish Institute of International Affairs, pointed out other notable Polish defense companies, such as the private WB Group, which specializes in communications networks, unmanned aerial vehicles, loitering munitions and fire control solutions.

“We want to improve in new technologies, especially unmanned vehicles as well as software and IT solutions,” Leszkiewicz said.

PGZ is also building ties with other European defense firms. It is building three new artillery shell factories in conjunction with the U.K.’s BAE Systems. PGZ’s Narew air defense system includes a tie-up with MBDA to supply missiles and launchers.

“Either we take advantage of this opportunity, or we let this period of rapid industrial development in defense pass. We have ambitions and want to fulfill them,” Leszkiewicz said.

Keeping the cash at home

This year, Poland aims to spend 200 billion złoty (€45.7 billion) — or 4.8% of GDP — on defense, the highest level in NATO. It is also the largest recipient of the EU’s €150 billion SAFE loans-for-arms program, taking in almost €44 billion.

The government is trying to ensure that the country’s defense industry gets a growing share of the new spending.

In May, Poland’s Armaments Agency signed almost 120 billion złoty in contracts with Polish arms companies financed by SAFE. A large share went to PGZ and its subsidiaries, mainly Huta Stalowa Wola, for equipment including 146 Borsuk infantry fighting vehicles, 96 Krab howitzers, 64 Rak mortars, K9PL support vehicles and 1,000 vehicles for the Homar-K rocket-launcher system.

Most of the deals with PGZ were no-bid contracts, according to a report by the Warsaw Enterprise Institute think tank.

“The development of the Polish defense industry is necessary, but it should not automatically mean preferential treatment for companies directly controlled by the government,” the report said.

Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz last month underlined that the government aims to develop the country’s military-industrial complex, saying: “We are building a strong army, strengthening security, and investing in Poland’s future.”

But favoring domestic companies risks clashing with the government’s drive to rearm as quickly as possible; Warsaw wants to buy tanks, jets and missiles to deter Russia, although that goal does pose problems for its domestic arms industry.

About 60 percent of Poland’s defense spending goes on imports, “and that won’t change quickly,” said Świerczyński. Most arms imports come from South Korea and the United States, including systems like K2 Black Panther tanks and F-35A fighter jets.

“In 2022, we were looking for ready-made solutions and products because we felt threatened,” said Leszkiewicz. “Today, we are trying to take every opportunity to Polonize production. We are now hardly buying ready-made products, except where we really lack a particular capability.” One of PGZ’s subsidiaries will be building K2 tanks starting in 2028. 

“I do see an effort to increase Polish intellectual property,” said Kozioł, the defense analyst, adding that it’s still unclear if the government’s effort to shift contracts to Polish firms will lessen the reliance on foreign technology.

In 2025, PGZ reported 18.4 billion złoty in revenues, a 23% increase on the previous year, and 2.8 billion złoty in profit, a 66% increase. The company ranked 51st in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2025 list of the world’s top 100 defense companies.  

“We aim to reach the top 10 in Europe and the top 30 globally,” said Leszkiewicz.

“If we look at PGZ’s development and results, it appears that, despite political issues, the company is trying to fulfill the task of arming the Polish military,” said Kozioł.

Political risk

Polish state-controlled companies are notorious for high levels of political interference. Although Kozioł underlined that there is a cross-party consensus in favor of continued high defense spending, PGZ does face political risks.

Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister from 2017 to 2023 under the previous Law and Justice Party government, this summer called for PGZ to potentially be dissolved, accusing it of “weak” management.

Kosiniak-Kamysz fired back, calling the idea “harmful and anti-state.”

The danger is likely to grow. Poland holds a parliamentary election next year and opinion polls suggest that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s coalition could be unseated by a grouping of right-wing parties.

That means Leszkiewicz’s position — he was a junior member of Tusk’s previous government from 2007 to 2011 and took over PGZ after running state-controlled fertilizer giant Grupa Azoty — could be under threat.

“A CEO would have to be in the job for a decade, but in Polish realities there is no chance of that,” said Świerczyński.

DUBLIN — Bomb threats targeting several of Ireland’s top media organizations are almost certainly linked to next week’s European Political Community summit in Dublin, a government official told POLITICO.

Newsrooms at Irish national broadcaster RTÉ, Virgin Media TV, the Irish Independent newspaper and Newstalk radio received identically worded emails Friday morning claiming bombs had been left inside their offices.

Three of the newsrooms were evacuated, disrupting RTÉ and Newstalk programs, while Virgin staff kept broadcasts running. Police confirmed they found no suspicious devices.

“We have expected a rise in hybrid threats to Ireland because of our hosting of the EU presidency, and the EPC meeting will be by far the biggest set-piece event of that presidency, so one must presume it’s no coincidence that we’re experiencing this spike in hybrid activity now,” the Irish official said.

The Irish government said the threats against media outlets were probably part of a European-wide pattern of threats that have targeted dozens of airlines this week, including Irish carriers Ryanair and Aer Lingus. Hackers also targeted supermarket refrigeration systems in at least seven European countries.

“It is not known yet who is responsible for these threats, whether it is individuals or a centralized or coordinated effort,” the Irish government said in a statement. “However, these threats come on the heels of the ongoing disruption to aviation around Europe caused by similar threats, and it seems likely that this is a coordinated campaign of disruption.”

Bomb threats also targeted at least 18 European flights Friday, after at least 22 the day before, raising concerns that the hoaxes may be part of a coordinated campaign to disrupt air traffic.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares told Spanish public broadcaster TVE on Friday that the bomb threats affecting flights could be “an attempt at hybrid aggression and war in some psychological way.” He added that “it cannot be a coincidence that so many identical events occur with the same modus operandi throughout Europe.”

Luis Gallego, CEO of airline group IAG, said: “It is clear that what they [the perpetrators] are looking for is to create chaos and disruption in the different airports.”

Fighter jets were scrambled in Hungary on Friday “in response to bomb threats involving three civilian passenger aircraft,” said Hungary’s Defense Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi.

Prague Airport said nine flights were targeted by bomb threats Friday alone, while France reported another four threats against aircraft flying over its territory that day. The Bulgarian government told AFP that two flights bound for Sofia were targeted by bomb threats on Friday.

Aviation professionals have said no threat should be underestimated. “No matter how remote the real possibility after a call that there is a bomb on board, we will treat it as if there is a bomb on board,” said Paul Reuter, an airline captain and vice president of the European Cockpit Association.

The Irish government official told POLITICO that the sudden increase in anonymous disruptions to airlines, supermarkets and now news outlets appeared to be timed to increase tensions ahead of Dublin’s hosting next Thursday of the EPC summit.

Created in 2022 following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the EPC brings together the leaders of 47 European countries and representatives of several bodies, including NATO, to discuss strategic issues. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is also attending.

The Irish official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Friday’s threats freely, declined to identify Russia as the likely culprit. But he noted that EU partners — including Denmark, which faced a similar wave of so-called hybrid attacks in the run-up to its own 2025 hosting of the EPC — had drawn such links in the past.

Irish police Superintendent Liam Geraghty said the event posed an even tougher security challenge than hosting a U.S. presidential visit. “We have not seen a policing and security operation of this scale ever before in Ireland,” Geraghty told reporters.

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BERLIN — Britain has set a 2030 deadline for raising defense spending to 3% of GDP. Finding the money — and getting industry to deliver — will be the harder tests, U.K. Defence Secretary Wes Streeting told POLITICO.

U.K. Chancellor John Healey announced the target during last week’s budget, but faced criticism for not laying out how it would be funded. The government will set out next year how it plans to meet the 3% target by 2030 and its NATO commitment to spend 3.5% of GDP on defense by 2035.

On a Monday visit to Brussels and Berlin, Streeting said he has “total confidence” that the U.K. will hit the 2030 goal, adding: “We deliver on time and on target.”

The U.K. currently spends about 2.6% of GDP on defense. However, the defense budget has been bolstered in a bid to deter Russia, while other departments face cuts.

“I think I was probably the only Cabinet minister going into the budget who was in a position to confidently say that we’d be getting more,” Streeting said of last week’s announcement.

He said the commitment to higher spending “was an important message to send to industry and our allies, and our adversaries for that matter.” He also rejected accusations that the government has not laid out a clear path for higher spending.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that hitting the 2030 defense spending target would need an additional £11 billion in spending, and reaching the 2035 NATO goal “would require an even larger, and more sustained, increase.”

In last week’s announcement, the Treasury also established an Innovative Defence Financing Taskforce aimed at “maximising the contribution of private and international finance to UK defense.”

The idea is to figure out how to channel more private sector funds into defense, including with public-private partnerships.

However, Streeting said he was wary of defense turning to Private Finance Initiatives. Under PFI, private consortia design, build and maintain public infrastructure — such as schools, hospitals and roads — in exchange for decades of taxpayer-funded lease and service payments.

“I’m a big critic of PFI,” said Streeting, noting that Britain “learned the lessons on PFI a long time ago and so the private finance initiative is not something we would repeat.”

“But there are other ways of drawing in private finance which learn the right lessons and get a good return and good deal for everyone, and pass without controversy,” he added.

The defense buildup involves tighter cooperation with industry and also closer links with key allies like Germany.

Streeting met with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius in Berlin to discuss the two countries’ defense partnership. That included discussions on Germany potentially joining the British-Italian-Japanese Global Combat Air Programme to build sixth-generation fighter jets.

Germany has been casting about for a way to build advanced combat jets after its joint efforts with France collapsed earlier this year.

One option is to forge closer ties with GCAP, but some of the three existing members, including Japan, are worried that bringing in Germany could delay the project, which aims to bring the aircraft into service by 2035.

There is also concern that adding another member would dilute the amount of work being done by companies from the three original countries, something Streeting said he was aware of. German officials also worry that Germany would have too little influence over a program that is already underway. 

Streeting stressed that allowing in new GCAP members would have to be a “shared decision” with Italy and Japan, adding he was conscious of “some of the risks around timescales for delivery.”

Asked about potential delays to GCAP, Streeting said: “One of the things I’m keen to do is to try and accelerate the program and look right across the program delivery timetable which bits we can try and truncate.”

He added that the long development time for the GCAP project exemplified frustrations with the defense industry across a range of other programs that are “shared by defense ministers across NATO.”

The European defense industry is pressing for governments to issue long-term contracts, which would lower the risk they face in making large investments to set up new production.

“I think it reflects a legitimate peacetime business as usual, where industry leaders are keen to avoid famine and feasts. They want to sustain their production lines,” Streeting said, but added that companies therefore “do not go as fast or as productively as they possibly could.”

But the need to deter Russia and to continue supporting Ukraine means that caution should be jettisoned, he said.

“We are in a place of heightening threat, and so as the U.K. and our NATO allies are spending more and investing more in our capability, we need industry to step up and accelerate as well with us.”