"At least 250,000 professional soldiers". Government presents new bill on Polish military

Kaczyński argued that "a country located at the border of NATO and EU needs to have at its disposal a serious deterrence force, and, if the need be, effective defence capabilites".

"We want Poland to be a militarily strong country, on of the strongest, it is necessary due our geopolitical situation, and it is our bounden duty to see it happen," said the leader of the ruling PiS party.

"All this prompts us to a radical strengthening of our armed forces, and this very bill is meant to serve this purpose. It is to put the laws in order, it is to abolish 14 other acts and replace them with a big legislation, that is 720 fittingly-divided articles," Kaczyński explained.

He also stressed that the currently binding law on common national defence duty has been passed in 1967.

The deputy prime minister added that his mission in this office would be over, once the legislation has been at least moved closer to being passed.

The proposed changes include, among others: introducing of voluntary basic military service and permament jobs for thsoe who complete it (still with no mandatory military service), new system of incentives to join the army, a new military rank of specialist private first class, forming of a new military branch for cyberspace protection and allowing people with disabilities to serve in it.

Mariusz Błaszczak said the Defence Ministry aimed to have more than 250,000 full-time soldiers and more than 50,000 members of the Territorial Defence Force, which is made up of professional and part-time volunteer soldiers. In 2020, there were around 110,000 full-time soldiers.

Poland will use a mode of financing employed to fight the economic consequences of COVID-19 to help fund a large increase in military spending, the defence minister added. Poland's government has used bonds issued by institutions such as the national development bank BGK or state fund PFR - but secured by the state - to finance much of its spending on helping the economy through the pandemic. This has helped it avoid including such spending in the state budget, a tactic that has been criticised by the Supreme Audit Office as lacking transparency. Minister Błaszczak also said the government would create an Armed Forces Support Fund, financed by government-secured bonds issued by BGK, treasury bonds, the state budget and profits from the central bank. "This is a solution that was used by the COVID fund. I want to strongly underline that the Armed Forces Support Fund will be run by BGK, so it won't be some additional institution," Błaszczak explained. He did not say exactly how much the expansion and modernisation of the armed forces would cost. However, Jaroslaw Kaczyński said spending would be "significantly higher" than 2% of gross domestic product, the level required of NATO states which Poland already exceeds. "It is better to be safe and a little bit more in debt," Kaczyński said.