Berlin and Warsaw want to set an example of reconciliation
Published: Tuesday, Jul 2nd 2024, 04:50
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A breather in the tough budget negotiations: Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) traveled to Warsaw late Monday evening with twelve of his federal and state ministers to give relations with the neighboring country a new boost. The first German-Polish government consultations in almost six years will take place there on Tuesday morning.
The consultations, which lasted just three hours and were chaired by Scholz and Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk, are expected to result in an action plan that will include compensation payments for living Polish victims of the occupation by Nazi Germany as well as German aid for the defense of NATO's eastern flank. According to a report in the "Süddeutsche Zeitung", the combined financial aid could be in the three-digit million range.
Compensation payments could open the door to further claims
However, the compensation payments were debated until the very end. It is a sensitive issue because it could open the door to claims from other countries. For example, almost 80 years after the end of the Second World War, Greece is still demanding compensation for the war damage caused by Nazi Germany.
According to Agnieszka Lada-Konefal from the German Poland Institute in Darmstadt, around 40,000 people who were once victims of the German occupiers still live in Poland today. Some of them took part in the Polish resistance as children or young people. "It would simply be important, both symbolically and practically, that these old, sick people receive support."
Money from the financial package will also be used to build the German-Polish House in Berlin. The house is intended to commemorate the complicated German-Polish history and the brutal German occupation during the Second World War (1939-1945) and create a place of remembrance for the Polish victims. Last week, the cabinet approved a draft of how the content of the documentation center should be structured.
Anti-German sentiment of the PiS government shattered the relationship
Poland has long been pressing for reparations for the damage caused by the Second World War and the occupation. The national-conservative PiS government, which led the country from 2015 to 2023, demanded reparations of more than 1.3 trillion euros from Germany. This and the constant anti-German propaganda by leading PiS representatives have shaken bilateral relations in recent years.
The climate has now improved significantly under Donald Tusk's center-left government, which has been in office since December. However, Tusk also emphasized during his inaugural visit to Berlin in February: "In a formal sense, the reparations were completed many years ago. But the material and moral reparations were never realized." It was necessary to settle accounts and look for ways to work together without straining mutual relations.
Good relationship with Poland becomes more important
Since the change of government in Poland, the format of the so-called Weimar Triangle between Poland, Germany and France has also been revitalized. In France, however, there is a threat of Marine Le Pen's right-wing nationalist Rassemblement National (RN) taking power after the parliamentary elections, as the first round of voting showed. Such a turnaround could weaken the Berlin-Paris axis - making good relations with Poland all the more important from a German perspective.
"There is a chance that German-Polish relations will become even more active as a result," says expert Lada-Konefal. However, the German government must take note of the fact that Poland has now become much stronger and more self-confident - also due to its role as a frontline state in the Ukraine war and an important ally of Kiev. Tusk is also keeping a much greater distance from Berlin than was the case during his first term of office from 2007 to 2014. "The times are over when Germany comes up with every proposal and the Poles applaud."
Scholz and Co. back in Berlin this afternoon
Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck from the Greens and Finance Minister Christian Lindner from the FDP, who have been wrestling with Scholz for weeks over a budget plan for 2025, are also present at the consultations. They will travel back to Berlin at midday together with the other cabinet members to report to the parliamentary groups on the status of the negotiations. A result should be reached by the end of the week.
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