Warsaw (Reuters) – Polish President Andrzej Duda proposed on Friday to register defense expenses representing at least 4% of gross domestic product (GDP), while Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that all adult men would receive military training.

Galvanized by the invasion of Ukraine by Russia three years ago, Poland now devotes a larger part of its GDP in defense than any other NATO member, including the United States.

Last year, Poland’s defense expenses reached 4.1% of GDP, according to NATO estimates, and they should reach 4.7% this year.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk then declared in Parliament that spending 5% for the defense seemed to be “a necessity”, but that the Poles had “a lot of effort to make”.

He added that the government wanted to set up by the end of the year a system allowing each adult man to be trained in the event of war, without giving more details.

“We will try to have a ready model by the end of the year so that each adult man in Poland is trained in the event of war, so that this reserve is really (…) adapted to potential threats,” said Donald Tusk.

He also indicated that he supported Poland with the withdrawal of international conventions prohibiting the use of anti-personnel mines and submunition weapons.

Andrzej Duda said Thursday at a joint press conference in Brussels with NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, that all NATO countries should immediately increase their defense expenses to reach at least 3% of their GDP.

Also on Thursday, the leaders of the European Union in Brussels supported the plans aimed at spending more for the defense and continuing to support Ukraine.

(Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk report, Pawel FLORKIiewicz; Mara Vîlcu for the , edited by Kate Entringer)

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