A cluster of previously contentious issues came together for possible reconciliation yesterday during the Polish foreign minister's visit to Moscow. There was a markedly more cordial tone to Radek Sikorski's meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Livrov, then heretofore. Poland is to lift its veto on Russia's talks with the European Union over a new partnership agreement between them, following Russia's decision to lift an embargo on Polish food imports. Without overt Russian pressure, Poland will talk further to the United States and its Nato allies about the proposal to place a US missile defence base on its soil.
These changes flow directly from the results of Poland's general election last October in which Donald Tusk's Civic Platform party defeated the conservative Law and Justice party led by Jaroslav Kaczynski. This lifted the air of confrontation and crisis that suffused Poland's foreign policy after Mr Kaczynski came to power in 2005 along with his twin brother Lech, who remains president of the country. Poland became increasingly isolated to its east and west.
Mr Sikorski resigned in protest from the previous government and now has the opportunity to repair both sets of relations. Last month he declared the proposed missile system to be "an American not a Polish project" and said there is no threat to Poland from Iran. Precisely this fear is used by the Bush administration to justify placing 10 missile defence systems in Poland and a back-up radar installation in the Czech Republic. As a result Russia suspended its participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, arguing that the missile system would disrupt the existing balance of military power.
This visit therefore flags an important shift of position on this important diplomatic axis, which will have implications for other Europeans. The EU badly needs to reach a more comprehensive agreement with Russia, notably on energy, trade and economic relations, all of which affect political relations. There are many contentious issues on this agenda (such as the row over the British Council in Russia), just as there are in the Polish-Russian one. In both cases energy looms large, as the Poles still bitterly resent the Russian-German pipeline being built in the Baltic, they say to bypass them.
But suddenly a number of these problems look more soluble, after a period of hopeless tension. This tension was stoked by Russian resentment of the marginal role assigned to it after the end of the Cold War. President Putin has forcefully objected to that, fuelled by booming energy prices. It is good to see Poland playing a constructive role in this changing diplomatic landscape.