The Polish and German government leaders held wide-ranging bilateral talks aimed at injecting new impetus into neighbouring relations that had deteriorated under Poland’s previous administration and jointly declaring their commitment to European security in turbulent times.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended Tuesday’s meeting in Warsaw along with 12 ministers and government officials, including Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
“We are sending a very clear message: Germany and Poland are good neighbours, close partners and reliable friends, and we want to create new dynamics of cooperation,” Scholz said at a joint news conference with Tusk.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (center left) and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk (center right) review a salute to honor troops in Warsaw. (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
The two euroskeptic leaders were strengthening their ties just days after a surge in support for far-right eurosceptic parties across Europe and France’s first parliamentary elections brought the far right closer than ever to taking power.
Extensive bilateral talks between Germany and Poland recently took place in November 2018.
Since then, Poland’s right-wing government, which was in power until last year, has adopted a hostile stance toward Germany, accusing it of having undue influence over European Union decision-making and demanding approximately $1.3 trillion in reparations for the losses Poland suffered under Nazi occupation during World War II.
The Tusk government, which took office in December, has been taking steps to repair relations.
These activities have taken on special significance in the face of Russia’s war with Ukraine across Poland’s and the EU’s 27-nation eastern border, as well as the pressures of illegal migration from the Middle East and Africa, which Poland and the EU say are part of a hybrid war against Europe by Russia and its ally Belarus.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk attend a press conference following German-Polish intergovernmental talks (Czarek Sokolowski/AP)
Tusk said he was very pleased to hear Scholz declare that Germany is ready to take joint responsibility for the security of Poland’s eastern border through investments in infrastructure and other security needs.
He criticized European countries for lacking coordination and determination in taking measures for the continent’s common security.
“German and Polish security are closely linked, which means that Polish security is also German security,” Scholz said.
“This is what we stand for as neighbors, as NATO allies and as partners in the European Union.”
“Our unity and joint action are our common strength,” he added.
Scholz also promised to “take measures to support the surviving victims of the German attack and occupation from 1939 to 1945” in Poland, and to “strengthen the memory and commemoration of our common painful history” by commemorating Polish victims through the establishment of a German-Polish House, “intended to serve as a visible sign against forgetting and a warning for the future.”
