Berlin to withdraw from military reparations agreement with Poland over high prices

Germany plans to terminate an agreement with Poland that sent broken-down Leopard tanks from Ukraine to Poland for repair, due to high costs.

The reason for terminating the agreement is Poland’s high price expectations that Berlin found “absolutely unreasonable.” Germany’s Foreign Ministry press service commented on the reports, explaining that the ultimate decision has not been made yet, and the talks with Poland are still ongoing.

“Poland and Germany together want to coordinate repairing the Leopard tanks for Ukraine,” it said in the announcement via Twitter, adding that the repairment on 2A5 and 2A6 models may start as soon as the Ukrainian army reports such need, with talks in progress on the repairment of 2A4 tanks.

According to Deutschlandfunk radio, the final decision on the cooperation between Warsaw and Berlin in repairing the Leopard tanks which get broken during fights in Ukraine is to be announced in the near future.

Meanwhile, the Handelsblatt reported that the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) demanded ten times as high prices for the repairments compared to the average ones. Berlin is not left without any alternative, though, it added.

Another option for Germany is repairing tanks in Ukraine and avoiding transporting them to Poland. In order to do that, it would sign an agreement with the Ukrainian armament company Ukroboronprom, with which it already has contracts for the conservation and production of tanks.

Also, Lithuania may benefit from the disagreements between Poland and Germany, as yet another possibility is to repair the tanks in the German service centre in Jonava City, Central Lithuania, according to the Handelsblatt.

The Leopard tanks were originally to be repaired in the Bumar-Łabędy centre in Gliwice town in the south of Poland, as promised by Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Defence Minister Mariusz Błaszczak during their visit there in April.

Terminating the agreement between Germany and Poland may cause serious problems for the Bumar-Łabędy centre, which is on the verge of collapse in spite of the boom in military equipment production and repair caused by the war in Ukraine.

“Time flies and the employees are slowly realising that the promises by the prime minister and defence minister are hardly delivered,” Onet reports.

(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)