Poland needs more EU funds for Ukraine arms purchases, PM says

Poland will seek additional European Union funding to refinance military purchases for Ukraine, the Polish prime minister said ahead of an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.

"Poland has already received about PLN 200 million (EUR 42.6 million) from the European Peace Facility (EPF) to refinance arms purchases for Ukraine," Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters.

"This is a huge fund worth over EUR 3 billion," Morawiecki stated.

"We want to... obtain an additional EUR 240 million, namely another billion zlotys, for Poland in the coming weeks," Morawiecki continued, expressing hope that he would be able to announce such news before Easter.

Referring to the situation in Belarus, Morawiecki said that it would be another topic of the EU summit as Belarus "has been serving Russia as a tool to avoid sanctions."

Morawiecki also said that it may be necessary to impose more sanctions on Belarus if the Alexander Lukashenko regime continued the imprisonment of over 1,000 political prisoners, including many Polish-Belarusians.

The prime minister added that illegal migration would be another topic of talks as "it is a very important subject for such countries like Poland, which has problems on the border with Belarus, or Italy which has problems with illegal migrants from Africa… Poland has already received EUR 200 million and will try to secure more funds from the revised EU budget."