In Poland, the number of people fearing an attack from Russia is growing month by month as support for Ukraine grows. A CBOS survey published on October 27 shows that 76% of respondents believe that the war in the neighboring country threatens Poland’s security. Compared to the previous month, it increased by 6 percentage points. On the same day, another poll was published by United Surveys, showing that more than 60% of Poles support the Defense Ministry’s plans to increase the number of troops to 300,000. The army now has more than 112,000 soldiers. The main supplier of equipment is South Korea, with which Warsaw signed a contract in July for the purchase of three squadrons of FA-50 aircraft, 600 K9 self-propelled howitzers and 1,000 K2 tanks. Poland already has more than 500 tanks, one of the most significant numbers in Europe.
On the way to Interarium
With the war in Ukraine, Warsaw’s importance in Europe has increased and, according to some security experts, Poland and other countries on NATO’s eastern flank, such as Romania, are expected to be strengthened in the coming years. NATO Deputy Secretary General Mircea Geoana has no doubts. At the conference in Iasi in October, the Romanian politician expressed his conviction that the region will strengthen politically, economically and technologically in the coming years. With the growing threat from Russia and a relatively passive stance on the part of Germany and France, the view that the current situation fuels the spontaneous quest to join forces against Russia and cooperation between neighboring countries has become dominant among Polish political scientists. , thus realizing the old idea of Intermarium. A Europe between seas, the idea promoted by the Polish Marshal Józef Piłsudski, the man who successfully halted the advance of Bolshevik Russia into Western Europe in the 1919-21 war. The idea of uniting the region between the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Adriatic Sea is also fueled by the trauma of more than four decades under Moscow’s control. Jacek Bartosiak, analyst at the Strategy & Future center, sees an opportunity to strengthen Intermerium’s ties to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, but at the same time points out that Warsaw’s strong commitment to Kiev positions itself like no other. country as a likely target of Russian military aggression. The analyst points out that one of the Polish airports passing through aid supplies to Ukraine could one day become the target of an attack.
The passivity of the West
Poland’s commitment to the Ukrainian cause is reflected in the increased number of refugees being received permanently or temporarily – more than 7 million (versus 1.5 million in all of Western Europe), but also in the role of the political representative of Kiev . It was thanks to Warsaw that the first foreign delegation formed by the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia arrived in the Ukrainian capital in mid-March. Three weeks before the visit to Kiev by the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, they appealed to the West for more support for the besieged country. Another delegation, made up of the heads of the Baltic States and President Andrzej Duda, arrived at the Polish initiative in April. The Polish politician has been repeatedly named by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as one of the most committed to the Ukrainian cause on the international stage. In May, during a visit to the Kiev parliament, Duda called on EU and NATO countries to maintain unity over aid to Ukraine. While there is unanimity among EU countries on support for Kiev, Europe is divided between a free West (excluding the UK) and a more generous group of Central and Eastern European countries. According to a report by the German center IfW Kiel published in September, Poland is among the top three donors to Kiev, after the US and the UK, with $1.8 billion in military aid. In this regard, Warsaw exceeds Berlin by 600 million dollars. In the top ten countries, three other Central and Eastern European states, such as the Czech Republic, Latvia and Estonia, have sent between 0.25 billion and 0.34 billion dollars to Ukraine. Besides France, with only 0.23 billion dollars, other Western European countries do not appear in the ranking. In terms of total aid, Poland is about $3 billion, almost three times as much as France. Western Europe’s inaction in helping Ukraine has been criticized not only by politicians in the Polish government, but also by the opposition. MEP Róza Thun of the Polska 2050 party, who recalled Germany’s guilt over World War II in an interview with DW in October, said Germany’s current attitude toward Ukraine was disappointing and Berlin was doing little to protect Kiev. help out. He recalled that Poland, “to which no one listened”, had warned the EU many years ago that the construction of the Nord Stream gas pipeline would make Europe dependent on Russian gas. “It is quite possible that in Germany there are too many politicians who are cooperating with Russia, they have too many common interests (…). And now there is also this slow delivery of arms to Ukraine,” Thun said.
Bazooka before the elections
In Polish public opinion, there is a belief that Germany is putting its own interests above other EU members and is blackmailing it with money paid for by the European Commission headed by former German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen. It refers to a report by the Politico portal in July, which analyzed cases of rule of law violations in the EU, with current EU leaders blocking Warsaw’s access to the €35 billion worth of Polish bazooka, as well as the €75 billion pledged from the Cohesion Policy Fund, which keeps Poland away from the main offenders. The document found that over the past 20 years, other countries have registered a higher number of non-compliance with EU law: Italy (1,375), Greece (1,251), Portugal (1,185) and Belgium (1,039). Poland was ranked 14th (817) and the prevailing opinion is that the European Commission’s blocking of European funds is an attempt to influence Poland’s parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for October 2023. According to Izabela Leszczyna, vice-chairman of the Civic Coalition, the Polish opposition’s largest political group, the money promised by Brussels to Warsaw will only appear “after the likely victory” of opponents of the conservative government of Mateusz Morawiecki in the elections. His statement presented on TVN24 was interpreted by many as a frank opinion about the intentions of European authorities who try to influence the Polish political situation through financial pressure. Warsaw accuses Brussels and Berlin of breaking unity in the EU in the face of Russia’s danger, focusing more on fighting the EU’s own allies than on efforts against Russia’s military and economic threats. One of the politicians mentioned is the current Vice-President of the European Parliament Katarina Barley. The former German minister stated in 2020 that the best way to discipline Poland and Hungary in the EU would be to cut off EU funding and “let them starve”. His words evoked associations with the starving Poles of the German Nazis during World War II.
nightmares from the past
Although Barley claims his words were misinterpreted and that the statement on Deutschlandfunk radio referred only to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, in Poland they are not forgetting the commitment of Germany’s policy to link the EU with Moscow. His visits to the pro-Kremlin Russia Today television channel contributed to this. “We remain in a close relationship with Russia (…). Russia is and will remain our partner,” Barley said on that channel in 2019, i.e. five years after the Russian occupation of Crimea. Moreover, despite the embargo, the main EU countries supplied weapons to Moscow. According to the Disclose portal, France and Germany sold weapons to Russia between 2015 and 2020 for €152 million and €121.8 million, respectively. Both countries accounted for 79% of all EU military exports to Russia.
The war in Ukraine opened a new chapter in German-Polish relations. In September, Warsaw presented its demands for World War II compensation to Berlin. The topic has been circulating in the Polish political debate for years. In 2004, the Polish parliament demanded that the government in Warsaw formalize its demands. Informal Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk at the time called for the request to be implemented, pointing out that “the German fine will never end” just as Polish requests will not lapse. Today, the former president of the European Council believes the current government in Warsaw is using the case “to the benefit of its political campaign”. Meanwhile, the Morawiecki government estimates the damage at 1.3 billion euros. It also hopes for the restoration of the status of a national minority looted from Poles since the Third Reich, and for the return of works of art stolen by the occupying forces. According to the Polish Ministry of Culture, the war losses database contains a record of 66,000 objects.
Warsaw follows the Greek and Namibian demands for reparations for German policy in the occupied territories in the 20th century. While Berlin refuses to pay Athens and Warsaw and “sees the matter closed”, it admits to giving in to Namibia, where the Germans committed genocide against two tribes between 1904 and 1908. As compensation, Germany will pay 1.1 billion euros in the coming years. 30 years. MEP Zdzislaw Krasnodebski, of the Polish co-deciding party Law and Justice (PiS), recalls that Germany has long denied responsibility for crimes in its former African colony, as it is currently doing with Poland, where as a result of the war provoked by the Third Empire, Poland lost 6 million citizens, a third of its territory and almost completely its capital, Warsaw, to the destruction. Professor Stephan Lehnstaedt, historian at Touro College in Berlin, assesses Polish demands and believes that “paying fair compensation to Poland” is a historic obligation of Germany. “You can’t respond to serious accusations with alms, or you will lose your credibility,” Lehnstaedt said, stressing that Berlin has no intention of rejecting Warsaw’s demands on moral grounds. Arkadiusz Mularczyk, State Secretary in the Polish MNE, agrees with the view: “Now we will see if Germany is really a constitutional state”.
Source: DN
