Poland offers India role in €44bn EU defence drive before EAM Jaishankar's visit

Poland is seeking deeper defence, space and cyber ties with India, including joint production of drones and reconnaissance satellites, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski has said during his ongoing visit to New Delhi. Bartoszewski, in India on 27-28 August with officials from Poland’s defence sector, said the trip was focused on “very concrete cooperation agreements” two years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Warsaw launched a strategic partnership and a joint action plan.

“We are halfway through our action plan, and we have managed to do more than 50 per cent of what we agreed. So we want to move forward,” he said. Poland, he added, understood India’s insistence that sales be paired with local manufacturing. “When we sell something, we have to produce some of these elements made in India.”

Drones are among the most immediate areas of work. A Polish firm is already operating in India and “is going to move into manufacturing” there. “Drone and anti-drone [capability] is one of the changing faces of war nowadays. So we do cooperate with the Indian government on that.”

Space is the other priority. Poland has launched its own satellites to monitor security threats and is discussing production in India of reconnaissance satellites. “Space is now playing an increasing role in warfare,” Bartoszewski said. “India is very much interested in that as well.”

Warsaw also wants Indian industry to tap Poland’s €44 billion allocation under the European Union’s SAFE defence programme. “Indian companies are interested in participating in that programme as well,” he said. Talks cover Polish firms producing in India and Indian firms producing in Poland, with products potentially sold to third markets.

The two sides also plan to work on cyber defence, port security and the protection of undersea cables. “We face very serious cyber threats. We face terrorist attacks. We have problems with port security [and] underwater cable security,” Bartoszewski said. An Indian defence delegation is expected in Poland in September, and Indian manufacturers have been invited to a major defence exhibition in Central Europe.

EAM S. Jaishankar to visit Poland next week

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is due in Poland next week. Bartoszewski described contacts between the two foreign ministries as unusually frequent. “He sees our minister a few times a year. This is a very close working relationship.”

Trade is another target. Officials have discussed nearly doubling bilateral trade to $10 billion a year within four years, aided by the EU-India free trade agreement. “We think we haven’t realised our mutual potential,” he said. The partnership also rests on wartime history. Indian rulers sheltered Polish refugees, including children, during the Second World War, before India’s independence.

A museum is being prepared in Kolhapur, and Polish parliamentarians have collected artefacts for the project. Bartoszewski recalled Prime Minister Modi meeting some of those former child refugees in Poland. “They told him they saw the Indian flag being hoisted on the day of independence. He was quite moved.”