The defense industries of Germany and Poland are holding back the agreement on the tank maintenance center for the Ukrainian Leopard 2 tanks.

In June, it was reported that the Polish arms producer Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa (PGZ) was finalizing negotiations with the German companies Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Rheinmetall.

However, on July 3, Polska Grupa Zbrojeniowa said that negotiations were still ongoing.

“Negotiations are ongoing, and until their conclusion, the parties have agreed to keep secret the details of the establishment of a Leopard tank maintenance center for Ukraine in Poland,” PGZ stated.

PGZ’s statement was made in response to an article by the German Spiegel, which described the reasons for the delay in accepting the agreements.

According to the publication, the German-Polish tank project has not yet made any progress. Instead, Berlin and Warsaw are at loggerheads over the details of the joint venture’s structure.

The first draft of the agreement was ready a few days ago, but by the end of last week the document was not signed due to various controversial points.

According to the plan, the two German tank manufacturers Rheinmetall and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) were to establish a joint venture.

Together with the Polish arms producer PGZ, they planned to create a joint tank workshop at the Polish factories in Gliwice and Poznan. The costs of repairing the Leopard tanks would be borne by the German government.

In industrial circles, however, they say that this project is being held back by Poland.

“The Polish arms producer PGZ presented very unique ideas regarding the cost of tank repair works; insiders talked about wildly inflated prices. PGZ wanted to take more than 100 thousand euros for the so-called initial diagnosis of tanks. In Germany, they usually charge only about 12,000 euros for such a diagnosis,” sources told Spiegel.

Sources of the publication also said that PGZ is not willing to give any guarantees for repairs, which is also questionable.