Poland to Reduce Forces and Trim Military Budget
Poland will cut tens of thousands of people from its military and reduce the percentage of national income spent on defense because of decreasing East-West tensions, Defense Minister Florian Siwicki was quoted as saying Tuesday.
Siwicki forecast such money-saving steps as consolidating military academies and officers’ schools, cutting the number of reservists called up for active duty and increasing the number of units whose personnel are reduced in peacetime, according to the state news agency PAP.
“We assume that these changes will bring considerable benefits, running into tens of thousands of full-time jobs, as well as big material and financial savings,” PAP quoted him as saying.
Poland has the second-largest army in the Warsaw Pact military alliance after the Soviet Union. The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies in 1987 estimated Poland’s army as having 394,000 active troops and 491,000 reservists.
The planned $1.9-billion military budget for 1989 represents 3.6% of the total national income.
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