By Marek Strzelecki and Pawel Florkiewicz
WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland is seeking Brussels’ approval to use the European Union’s Ukraine reconstruction funds for infrastructure, logistics, and dual-use projects in Ukraine and partly in its own border areas, development lender Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego said.
Poland’s BGK, which raised 389 billion zlotys ($107 billion) in loans, guarantees and EU funds in 2024 to support the economy, also manages a fund that services the country’s defence outlays, which are the second largest in NATO.
The lender has extended loans for companies seeking to participate in Ukraine’s rebuilding and along with German and French peers it has set up a 500 million euro European Flagship Fund for the Reconstruction of Ukraine.
With war-torn Ukraine’s rebuilding costs estimated at $524 billion, the EU has also prepared the Ukraine Facility, another fund to support reconstruction, and BGK has applied to tap its funds, its first vice president Marta Postula said.
“We hope to sign an agreement with the European Commission in the last quarter on three segments of the Ukraine Facility (…) and Polish entrepreneurs operating in Ukraine being able to benefit from this,” she told Reuters.
“We are also negotiating so that these funds could be spent not only in Ukraine, but also in the border zone in Poland.”
With most support and military aid for Ukraine being channelled via Poland, Warsaw wants to broaden the facility’s usage for logistics or dual-use projects in Polish areas bordering Ukraine too, she said.
Other components of the facility include bank guarantees for investments by Ukrainian municipalities and small and medium-sized companies.
Postula said competition among companies looking to invest in Ukraine is intense.
“My colleagues who travel to Ukraine say the hotels are full of foreigners,” she said.
Rzeszow, a Polish hub for military and humanitarian help for Kyiv shielded by Patriot missiles, in 2023 attracted aerospace giants Boeing and Safran, who hired hundreds of engineers.
There is also interest in investing on the eastern side of the border with Ukraine, Postula said.
“We see that even those who aren’t in Ukraine now see hope for the future, for future investments (…) Energy and the construction sector generate the greatest interest from Polish entrepreneurs,” she said.
($1 = 3.6365 zlotys)
(Reporting by Pawel Florkiewicz and Marek Strzelecki; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
