Advertising
Relations between Warsaw and Berlin, never warm, have deteriorated since the start of the war in Ukraine, undermining the unity of NATO and the European Union.
Send a story to any friend.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift pieces to offer per month. Everyone can read what you share.
By Steven Erlanger
BRUSSELS – A bitter political and diplomatic rift between Germany and Poland, two members of the European Union and NATO, has deepened as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, undermining the team spirit and solidarity of the two organizations.
The poisonous nature of dating was recently underscored when a German offered to supply two batteries of rare and beloved Patriot air defense missiles to Poland, after a Ukrainian missile deflected and killed two Poles last month in the small town of Przewodow.
Poland first accepted the Patriots’ offer, then turned it down. They then insisted that the batteries be placed in Ukraine, a failure for NATO, as the missile systems would be operated through NATO personnel. They seem to have accepted the missiles again.
“This total story is like an X-ray of the depression between Poland and Germany,” said Michal Baranowski, regional managing director of the German Marshall Fund in Warsaw. “It’s worse than I thought, and I saw it for a long time. “
Poland has long been suspicious of Germany; Hitler’s invasion in 1939 marked the beginning of World War II. He also criticized Ostpolitik’s German policy, the Cold War effort to bring Moscow closer to Moscow and the Soviet-occupied Central and Eastern European countries.
Democratic Poland has consistently criticized Germany’s dependence on Russian power and the two Nord Stream pipelines designed to carry reasonable Russian fuel directly to Germany and bypass Poland and Ukraine. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has only intensified the view in Poland that Germany’s close relations with Russia and President Vladimir V. Putin was not only naïve, but also self-centered and, perhaps, just waiting for it to break permanently.
Both sides have made mistakes in the existing dispute, said Jana Puglierin, head of the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations. “Dating has been deteriorating for years, but now it’s peaking and causing genuine damage,” he said. There is a hole between Eastern Europe and Western Europe, the old Europe and the new Europe, and that only benefits Vladimir Putin. “
Germany believed the army’s gesture of help would be “too clever to refuse” and help convince Poles that Germany is a reliable ally, said a senior German diplomat, who would speak only anonymously in accordance with diplomatic practice. After all, he said, the Poles themselves are looking to buy Patriots, a surface-to-air anti-missile system, “so we’re looking to make this government’s cool animated film from Germany more hollow. “
But after Poland’s defense minister and president temporarily accepted the offer, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the 73-year-old leader of the ruling Law and Justice party, rejected it two days later.
Not only did he insist that the patriots pass into Ukraine, but he warned that Germany, which he attacks because he is on Russia’s side in Poland, and whose foot soldiers would act on the patriots, would not dare to confront Russia. Germany’s attitude so far provides no explanation for why it believes it will make the decision to launch Russian missiles,” Kaczynski said.
Kaczynski has no official role in the Polish government, but Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak lined up within hours. impotence.
NATO allies were quietly furious, exactly because the Patriots would be operated through German infantrymen and the defense bloc made it clear that it would not deploy troops to Ukraine and would threaten a NATO-Russia war. Any resolution to send patriots to Ukraine, Germany said, be a NATO resolution, not a bilateral one.
“Kaczynski knew this and was completely cynical,” said Piotr Buras, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations in Warsaw. “Everyone knew that the Germans would not send and might simply not send patriots to Ukraine. in Ukraine either.
The only explanation for Kaczynski’s reaction is political, Mr Baranowski of the German Marshall Fund, since Poland is on an electoral crusade and the party is declining. With elections scheduled for next fall, Law and Justice is strengthening its base and “criticism of Germany is a consistent party line,” he said.
Some analysts have also detected a political reason on the German side. Berlin’s offer, so soon after the Poles’ death, “clearly a German effort to win in the bitter and poisonous diplomatic war between Poland and Germany,” said Wojciech Przybylski, editor-in-chief of Visegrad Insight and president of Warsaw. Based at the Res Publica Foundation, a study institution. “And it also hurts Kaczynski’s electoral strategy. “
Still, “for Poland’s top politician and leader of the ruling coalition, to say he doesn’t trust Germany as his best friend is shocking,” Baranowski said. “If this is not managed correctly, it can damage the unity of the alliance, beyond the two countries, I have never seen security instrumentalized in this way, in this poisonous mixture. “
But Germany will keep the offer open, the German diplomat said, and opinion polls showed that a large percentage of Poles believe that having German patriots in Poland is a good idea.
On Tuesday night, the Polish government replaced its position. Blaszczak, the defense minister, announced that after further talks with Berlin, he had accepted “with disappointment” that the missiles would pass into Ukraine, adding: “We are starting to think about deploying launchers in Poland and integrating them into our command system.
But bitterness will persist, and few will expect Kaczynski and his party to avoid doubting German sincerity. It wasn’t until October, for example, that Warsaw asked Germany to pay reparations for World War II, calculating $1. 3 trillion in losses during the war, a factor Berlin said had been resolved in 1990.
But the complaint of Germany’s hesitation toward Ukraine, and France’s early willingness to push for peace talks at Ukraine’s expense, is not limited to Poland, but is also widespread in Central, Eastern and Northern Europe, albeit less burdened.
“There is a lot of communication about the West and the EU. Unity and cooperation in Ukraine, but at the same time this war has triggered a significant wave of grievances from Western Europe in Poland and the Baltic states,” said Mr. Buras of the European Council on Foreign Relations. This deepened skepticism and complaints, especially from Germany and France, and nurtured a sense of ethical superiority towards them, that we are on the right side and that they were on the side,” he said. And that has reinforced distrust in security cooperation with them, that we can’t depend on them, but only on the United States and the United Kingdom. “
The Polish debate mixes two things, he says. First, there is a “ruthless political instrumentalization of Germany through law and justice: it is amazing how they paint Germany as an enemy and Berlin as as harmful to Poland as Moscow, that Berlin needs Russia to win and does not help Ukraine at all. “
But beyond the crude propaganda, M. Buras, in Poland it is not recognized that, after the invasion in Berlin, it has realized that the war has returned to Europe, that Germany will have to rearm and depends too much on Russia. power and commerce.
Poland may not be the only country to criticize Germany for Ukraine, Puglierin said, however, at the level, “it is the political layer in Poland, poisonous and nasty. “And I think it will only get worse before the election, just when unity is useful. “
There is a brighter point of cooperation. Earlier this month, the two countries signed an agreement to work to secure the long-term of the large Schwedt refinery, a German facility that had processed Russian oil, now under sanctions.
Sophia Besch, a German analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, insisted that Germany had replaced since the Russian invasion. He highlighted the radical shift in policy towards a more powerful military and greater economic resilience, the “Zeitenwende”, or historic turning point, announced through Chancellor Olaf Scholz. “Scholz is much more committed to listening to Central European countries,” he said. “Our romance with Russia is over. “
Advertising