POLAND: Poland and the US underlined their friendship yesterday by signing an agreement on the biggest military package in Europe in years - and the most substantial ever in former communist eastern Europe.
The deal confirms Warsaw as a pivotal member of US Defence Secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld's pro-American "new Europe", as opposed to the "old Europeans", led by France and Germany, who were against the war in Iraq.
At a ceremony at an airbase south of Warsaw, the Poles signed up to purchase 48 American fighter jets from the Lockheed Martin Corporation at a cost of $3.5bn - contracts which have infuriated the French and brought complaints from Brussels that Poland, which joins the EU next year, is acting disloyally.
The embattled Polish Prime Minister, Mr Leszek Miller, running a minority government and presiding over economic distress and unemployment at 20 per cent, hailed yesterday's agreement as the opening of a new phase in the ever-closer relationship with the US.
Apart from the British, the Poles were the only Europeans to join the US in combat in Iraq.
Despite European demands for the UN to oversee Iraq's reconstruction, the Poles are lining up behind the Americans, lobbying for business, debt repayment and a role in post-war Iraq.
"We can call this the contract of the century," said the Polish Defence Minister, Mr Jerzy Szmajdzinski, after signing the deal at the Deblin airbase.
The $3.5bn cost of the 48 F-16 Fighting Falcons comes cheaply for the Poles because of unusually generous US terms which will leave the US taxpayer footing much of the bill for years.
Despite Poland's EU membership, President Alexander Kwasniewski has made plain that he views the US and not Paris, Berlin or Brussels as Poland's key friend and guarantor in times of crisis.