BERLIN, June 19 (UPI) -- Just as Berlin needs Warsaw's support for a decision on the future of the European Union, German-Polish relations are in their most troubled state since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
"In the past years, a series of warm fronts has clouded the sky between Berlin and Warsaw," Kai-Olaf Lang, Poland expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, told United Press International Tuesday in a telephone interview. "It may be time to reflect if that's not part of a long-lasting climate change between the two countries."
The latest warm front is threatening to derail this week's EU leaders' summit in Brussels. German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to revive the EU constitution, but Poland has threatened to veto any road map if Berlin pushes through the double majority voting system, which has a bill becoming law when at least 55 percent of the national governments representing at least 65 percent of the EU's population back it. Warsaw instead has proposed an alternative voting system based on the square root of each country's population, and Poland's infamous leaders, the short but fierce Kaczynski twins (Prime Minister Jaroslav and Lech, the president), have announced they would fight to the "death" for their square root, despite the willingness of 25 member states to support the double majority system.
Merkel spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm told journalists Monday to gear up for some long and tough negotiations. "Much points in the direction of a three-shirt summit," he said, in reference to the term that means politicians will likely go into overtime in Brussels.
The latest rift between EU presidency holder Germany and Poland is -- as Lang noted -- just the latest in a series of tensions that have troubled the countries' bilateral relations in the past years. Observers say they are as dire as never before since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism in Poland in 1989. Those post-communist years had been dominated by numerous cultural and social exchange programs; Germany became the main supporter of Poland's accession into the EU, and the Polish-German relationship was something of a European success story.
But ever since the conservative Kaczynski twins were elected into office, German-Polish ties have deteriorated. Like many Poles, they remain deeply suspicious of Germany given Poland's suffering under Nazi occupation. For the pro-American Kaczynskis, World War II and the country's communist era, which wasn't prevented by the West, dominate campaigns and policies.
When asked what threatened Poland in 2005, President Lech Kaczynski answered, according to German news magazine Der Spiegel: "Threats? Those are our neighbors -- Russia and Germany."
"While this is not the only factor in the equation, we have of course the Kaczynski effect," Lang told UPI. "Many issues are ideologized and seen with historic eyes."
In some cases, Warsaw's suspicion may be understandable. Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had fostered extremely close, often one-sided relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and repeatedly overlooked the Baltic and Eastern European states.
In 2005 Schroeder irritated the Polish leadership when he struck a deal with Putin to build an underwater gas pipeline through the Baltic Sea, directly linking a Siberian gas field to a German port city, bypassing the usual transit country, Poland.
When Warsaw's officials are mad, they often use Nazi comparisons, a tendency that has calm-headed observers shake their heads. Poland's former Defense Minister Radoslav Sikorski likened the project of the German-Russian gas pipeline to the 1939 Hitler-Stalin pact (also known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, as it was signed by the countries' foreign ministers), a non-aggression treaty that in a secret annex divided Eastern Europe into areas that each side would be allowed to conquer, dividing Poland for both powers.
When Berlin-based newspaper taz printed a skit on the Polish president called "Poland's new potato," Polish Foreign Minister Anna Fotyga -- a main figure in the ongoing EU row -- compared taz's rhetoric to that of "Stuermer," the official newspaper of the Nazis infamous for its disgusting anti-Semitic pamphlets. Warsaw even called on Berlin to reprimand taz, but the German government vehemently refused, citing press freedom.
The comparison is of course nonsense: taz is one of Germany's most left-wing newspapers and the main media organ supporting the anti-Fascist movement.
Yet while Schroeder's center-left government had repeatedly ignored the smaller European countries, since late 2005, German-Polish relations logically should be improving: Merkel has repeatedly stated that she wants to listen more to the Eastern European and Baltic states, a move backed by Berlin's willingness to dish out a large sum of cash to broker a deal on the EU finances last year. The deal also benefited Poland.
"It's quite a paradox: We have an explicitly Poland-friendly government in Berlin, which on sensitive issues is willing to move toward Warsaw," Lang said, noting that this hasn't led to any atmospheric improvements between the two governments.
Within Europe, Warsaw has to watch out that it doesn't lose much of the good will it has rallied during its more than 10-year EU accession process.
"Of course the image is exaggerated, but Poland does at the moment carry the image of a blocker," Lang said in reference to the Russian-Polish row over meat imports, which culminated in a Polish veto of a renewed partnership treaty between Brussels and Moscow. The EU in the row backed Warsaw and may now want something in return, observers say. "A constant veto course will only lead to Poland's marginalization," Lang added.
