POLAND-GERMANY: Neighbours, But Not Much Love

By Zoltán Dujisin Reprint | | Print |

Zoltán Dujisin

KRAKOW, Poland, May 4 2007 (IPS) - The visit to Poland by German Chancellor Angela Merkel last month came as an attempt at closing the gap separating the two neighbours.

Analysts say Merkel’s talks with Polish President Lech Kaczynski and Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski showed some willingness to ease tensions between the two countries.

The two countries have widely differing approaches to international and domestic politics.

“Such visits are very important, but never decisive for the whole body of the relations,” Bartosz Wisniewski, an international security expert at the Centre for International Relations in Warsaw told IPS.

“The visit gave positive impulses for public opinion, both acted as if they felt well in each other’s company,” says Wisniewski. “These symbolic gestures are rare, but I wouldn’t expect ground-breaking improvements.”

With Germany holding the rotating presidency of the EU Council for the first half of this year, Merkel has set the revival of the EU constitutional treaty as its main goal. Poland has been among the more sceptical EU countries to the treaty.

Poland’s opposition to the constitution is marked by both practical and ideological considerations.

The constitution draft which the German presidency wants would create a voting system disadvantageous for middle-sized countries such as Poland. Germany fears that conceding to Poland could lead to an unstoppable chain of demands by EU members.

Warsaw wants to ensure a strong position in the EU’s balance of powers so as to promote further eastward enlargement, influence future budgets, and shape the EU’s agricultural policy, essential for the largely rural country of 40 million.

Eastward enlargement is one of Poland’s foreign policy priorities. Poland aims to attract Eastern European countries towards the EU, away from Moscow’s sphere of influence.

But in view of recent tensions over Russian energy exports to Europe, which several countries fear could be used as a foreign policy tool by Moscow, Warsaw is trying to include a provision on energy solidarity in the treaty, that would establish mutual energy security guarantees between EU states.

Poland also wants to push through a reference to Christianity in the constitution. Merkel has said Europe should not be a club of Christians, but rather a club of elementary values that are based on Christianity.

Germany could make concessions on most Polish demands, but the reference to Christianity in the preamble of the Constitution is likely to run into French secularist opposition.

Merkel’s mission to revive the constitution is still proving more successful than sceptics had predicted following its rejection by popular referenda in France and the Netherlands. Poland, a strongly pro-EU country, wants to avoid blame for failing to promote European integration.

So far the Kaczynski brothers have agreed to using the existing constitutional text as a basis for further amendments to the constitution.

Warsaw also saw Merkel’s visit as a chance to break its relative isolation within the EU since the eurosceptic Kaczynskis forged an alliance with the populist and ultra-Catholic right in 2005.

With their election, won after naming Russia and Germany as the two greatest international dangers for Poland, relations with Berlin plummeted. Poland’s close alliance to the U.S. government and Germany’s open cooperation with Russia have been among some of the most longstanding impediments to improved relations.

Germany opposes the setting up of a U.S. missile defence system in Eastern Europe if done outside the framework of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and without consulting the Kremlin.

Berlin has shown displeasure over Poland’s unwillingness to discuss the issue with its most important Western neighbour and with Russia, which Germany has consistently considered a “strategic partner” for Europe.

On the other hand, there is unanimity in Poland that Germany too has acted selfishly by supporting the construction of a German-Russian gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, which would bypass Poland and allegedly make the country dependent on Moscow.

Berlin has offered to supply Poland with gas by linking the pipeline to Poland, but Warsaw’s displeasure seems to be based on more than simply energy concerns.

“We are still suffering from history,” Wisniewski told IPS. “Russian-German relations are very important when thinking of German-Polish relations.”

The figure of former German chancellor Gerhard Schroeder still haunts Poles who resent his friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Schroeder is involved with one of the companies building the Russian-German pipeline,” Wisniewski says.

However, “the situation has changed with Merkel, because she is treating Putin in a completely different way,” he told IPS.

Poland is hoping Germany will exert pressure on Russia to have a Russian technical ban on Polish agricultural exports lifted, which Poland believes is politically motivated.

Russia is angered by Poland’s decision to allow the U.S. to deploy its base in Eastern Europe, but Warsaw is against any interference from Moscow on security issues, and as a response to the Russian ban it has vetoed negotiations on a new EU-Russia strategic partnership.

But history also weighs on relations with Germany. Poland is troubled about property claims being pursued at the European Court of Justice by World War II German expellees from Poland and has called on Berlin to assume its responsibility over the risks of litigation.

German efforts to set up a centre against expulsions, which would function as a documentation and research centre on wartime expellees, including Germans who left Poland in the aftermath of World War II, ran against Polish opposition as well.

Polish officials see these and other German efforts as an attempt at historical revisionism, which led Jaroslaw Kaczynski to previously insinuate that Germany was attempting to “shift part of the responsibility from the perpetrator to the victim.”

Merkel pledged opposition to compensation claims by the displaced, and denied her country would support reinterpreting German history, but insists expellees have the right to – commemorate their fate with dignity.”

Yet both within and outside official circles, Poles complain of Berlin not taking the largest Central-Eastern European country in the EU seriously.

Resentment persists over the image the country has in Germany, and Poles often see in German opinion polls that they are among the least liked nations in the neighbouring country.