Poland ‘surprised’ by the Patriot pricetag - Kownacki

According to Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki, the PLN 37 billion price tag for the Patriot missile defense system is unacceptable. “The high cost came as a surprise for us. The price is indeed unacceptable for us even in the view of the significant financial assets that we allocated for the technical modernization of the Polish Armed Forces,” he said in an interview with Defense News portal. Poland earmarked PLN 30 billion for the purchase. “We will be working hard on reducing it, we will be conducting a line-by-line review,” Kownacki added. Kownacki added it’s possible that over the course of the negotiations it will turn out that some of the high prices were presented to the country due to a misunderstanding of its offset regulations. Poland changed its offset regulations and there are a number of elements that may not be understood, he said. Poland wants to buy 16 missile launchers, four sector radars and 208 PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (MSE) missiles. Romania has signed a deal for the Patriot missiles recently for $764 million, but it covers fewer launchers and other hardware, on top of that, Poland wants to create its own integrated air-and-missile defense program.