[voytec]

> the country is the recipient of a huge amount of EU funds

What shaped Poland into something acceptable as a NATO member was USAID - the program Musk and Big Balls axed.

USAID allowed Poland to join NATO and later the EU. I've snatched the 188-pages long PDF[0] (English/Polish) before it was publicly erased.

[0] https://sysartist.com/usaid-and-the-polish-decade.pdf