Reuters:
Raytheon’s Patriot remains Poland’s first choice in its missile defense tender, the Polish deputy defense minister said, but only if the price is lowered and Poland can access certain U.S. defense technologies.
Last year, Poland’s centrist government said it would buy U.S. Raytheon’s Patriot missiles in a deal worth an estimated $5 billion. The tender is a key element of Poland’s large-scale army modernization scheme, speeded up in response to the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s renewed assertiveness in the region.
Following the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party’s election victory in October, the new government questioned whether the “original cost and timeline assumptions, as well as those regarding the scope of (U.S.) cooperation with Polish industry,” could be met, adding it might scrap the deal.
“It cannot be ruled out that (Patriot’s) development will be stopped by the (U.S.) government, and then it will be replaced by some other technology,” deputy Defence Minister Bartosz Kownacki told daily Gazeta Polska Codziennie in an interview published on Thursday.
“In this situation, the price offered by Raytheon is unacceptable.”
Poland will not sign the deal unless Washington gives it access to certain military technologies Warsaw “deems valuable” for its defense industry, Kownacki said. But this could prove a major stumbling block, he said, so Poland also has to consider other options.
“For now, the Patriot system is first in the game,” Kownacki said. “Obviously, all the time we have to have in the back of our heads other possibilities, such as Lockheed Martin’s MEADS (missile defense).”
Poland would like to make a final decision on the missile defense system before it hosts a NATO summit in July, Kownacki said…
