Tensions overshadow Olaf Scholz’s inaugural visit to Warsaw

The burdened past makes German-Polish ties a tricky business for any political visitor from Berlin, but scarcely have relations been trickier than for chancellor Olaf Scholz.

On his inaugural visit on Sunday, Scholz recalled the great suffering Nazi Germany brought on Poland, and its subsequent struggle under communist rule and martial law, which was imposed 40 years ago.

“I am very, very happy that today, 40 years later, we can stand together as representatives of democratic states that are united in the European Union,” said Scholz after talks with his Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki.

The visitor’s words had an aspirational quality to them, given growing concerns that Warsaw’s ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is transforming Poland into an autocratic state, at odds with fundamental European rights and values, including an independent judiciary and free media.

Norway to ban serving of alcohol in bars and restaurants amid Omicron fears

---

Kentucky governor confirms at least 64 killed in tornadoes

---

Revolutionary biopic’s success a sign of Brazil’s coarsening debate

---

Israeli PM holds historic meeting with UAE crown prince

---

Foreign minister Annalena Baerbock raised doubts that the pipeline, which is completed but waiting for a German operational permit, would ever go online

Berlin’s new coalition appears concerned too, noting in the preamble to its 177-page coalition agreement its “commitment to peace, freedom, human rights, democracy, the rule of law and sustainability”.

‘European federal state’

Some in PiS have taken issue with that, along with Berlin’s stated goal to develop the EU into a “European federal state”.

Scholz sidestepped the rule of law question by expressing hope that the European Commission and Warsaw can reach an agreement soon on judicial reforms.

On EU integration, meanwhile, Morawiecki warned of “bureaucratic centralism”. “Europe will be strong if it is a Europe of sovereign states, of fatherlands,” he said.

There was no palpable progress on other outstanding sources of tension, in particular the completed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, ready to carry gas directly from Russia to Berlin, bypassing Poland and Ukraine.

Morawiecki said the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is becoming untenable, as it increases Moscow’s options to exert pressure on the EU, “tightening the political noose” around Ukraine.

With a growing Russian troop build-up on Ukraine’s border, meanwhile, Scholz said Berlin would “not accept a violation of those borders” but declined to say if Nord Stream 2 could become part of the growing conflict.

Scholz reiterated the existing Berlin position: that the issue of reparations was closed because it had been regulated in international treaties

Hours later on German television, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock raised doubts that the pipeline, which is completed but waiting for a German operational permit, would ever go online.

“The last government discussed with the Americans that, if there are further escalations [in Ukraine], then this pipeline cannot come online,” she said.

Deteriorating relations

In a sign of deteriorating relations with Warsaw, her inaugural visit saw her Polish counterpart, Zbigniew Rau, devote 20 minutes of their joint press conference to what the PiS administration views as Germany’s outstanding war reparations to Poland.

PiS has raised the issue many times in the past, usually at times of domestic political difficulties. A new poster on reparations, carrying the logo of Poland’s culture ministry, juxtaposes images of Angela Merkel and Adolf Hitler, while PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski reportedly referred to modern Germany recently as the “fourth Reich”.

Scholz reiterated the existing Berlin position: that the issue of reparations was closed because it had been regulated in international treaties.

The PiS administration set up a parliamentary commission in 2017 to quantify German wartime destruction and calculate reparations costs. The government has never published the final report from 2020 nor, say German officials, ever filed a reparations claim.

Warsaw analysts said that, with only cursory efforts to accentuate the positive, the inaugural visits bode ill for the bilateral relationship.

“The Germans will not escalate the conflicts and try to avoid a major confrontation,” said Piotr Burdas, Warsaw office chief of the European Council on Foreign Relations. “But there is no positive agenda and less interest in working on it – on either side.”