Poland to host European Patriot maintenance centre, government says

A maintenance centre ​for Lockheed Martin's Patriot interceptor ‌missiles will ​be established in Poland, Deputy Defence Minister Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said on Tuesday.

Wars in Ukraine and ‌the Middle East have strained stocks of air-defence interceptor missiles and caused delivery delays, prompting countries to seek maintenance and production capabilities closer to home. "Four ‌countries competed for the European location of this investment: alongside Poland — ‌Germany, the Netherlands, and Norway," Sobkowiak-Czarnecka wrote on social media platform X. "This success was not a given," she said.

The centre in Poland will be the only ⁠one ​outside the United States, ⁠Sobkowiak-Czarnecka said. The Pentagon said, in a statement on its website, that the European ⁠Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) Missile Maintenance Facility (MMF) "will be underpinned by robust, transatlantic industrial cooperation, with ​critical supply chain integration led by Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden."

"By ⁠establishing regional maintenance, repair, and overhaul capabilities directly within the European theater, the ⁠MMF ​will dramatically shorten turnaround times and further secure critical supply lines," the statement said. Sobkowiak-Czarnecka told reporters during a briefing in Brussels that the ⁠value of the investment would be around 1 billion zlotys ($253 million) and ⁠that it ⁠would take a dozen or so months to make the centre operational.

($1 = 3.9462 zlotys)