Warsaw is helping Ukraine unreservedly and therefore has a few things to criticize about Berlin. CDU boss Merz goes to Poland and listens to it. Once again he is faster than the federal government.
As the first top German politician, CDU chairman Friedrich Merz tried to dampen displeasure at the allegedly hesitant arms aid in the Ukraine war in Poland. The leader of the parliamentary group in the Bundestag spoke to Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Thursday. He was told that although economic relations were good, Germany’s arms deliveries to Ukraine or Poland were “not satisfactory” – according to Morawiecki’s spokesman Piotr Mueller. Merz also spoke to Donald Tusk from the opposition civil platform PO in Warsaw.
The day before, the strong man of Polish politics, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, also received the German politician at short notice. The chairman of the national-conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS) wants to establish a new relationship with the neighboring country over Merz, wrote the Wiadomosci portal.
Apart from the non-partisan Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Merz was the first high-ranking visit from Berlin to Warsaw since the beginning of the war. “Poland is our most important neighbor to the east,” he said. The opposition leader had also traveled to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv long before Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).
In Warsaw, Merz remained true to the role he has been playing in Berlin for months: he sees himself as the driver of the traffic light coalition. He takes credit for the fact that at the end of April the Bundestag, with a large majority, passed a resolution to support Ukraine, which expressly also provides for the delivery of heavy weapons. After much back and forth, the SPD, Greens, FDP and CDU/CSU finally submitted a joint motion.
But Merz has been complaining for weeks that the announcement is not followed by any action. Even if that’s not true, as the delivery of ten 2000 self-propelled howitzers, Gepard anti-aircraft tanks and Mars II multiple rocket launchers shows. Merz argues the same way as the eastern partners who accuse Germany of being “too little, too late” with regard to arms aid: too little and too late. The fact that the news broke during his trip to Poland that the armaments group Krauss-Maffei Wegmann had received approval to sell 100 new howitzers to the Ukraine at least invalidates the “too little”.
The CDU leader’s visit came at a difficult time in bilateral relations. These are simmering on the back burner – gone are the days when Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and then Prime Minister Tusk maintained close contacts. The PiS has been in power since 2015, and their propaganda smells German conspiracies everywhere to control Poland.
Kaczynski also told Merz how much Germany still owed Poland for the damage it suffered in World War II. Berlin considers the issue of reparations settled since reunification in 1990. Merz tried to draw attention to joint projects.
The Russian war against Ukraine has shifted the balance. Poland is NATO’s most important frontline country. International military aid runs through him. The country itself surrendered more than 200 tanks and other weapon systems. The Balts are just as actively helping their neighbor Ukraine.
Strengthened by this self-confidence, the Middle East Europeans are spokesmen in reproaching Germany for its previous policy on Russia and its energy dependency. “German policy was selfish and we are all paying a price today for the fact that Germany actually encouraged Russia to do this,” PiS MP Arkadiusz Mularczyk said on television.
When it comes to Polish criticism of Germany, you have to differentiate between what is domestically motivated and what is justified, Merz told journalists. Among the justified points he counted the sluggish ring exchange, in which Germany is supposed to give battle tanks to Poland as a replacement for its arms aid to Ukraine. From the Polish point of view, the offer of 20 Leopard 2 from 2023 also falls into the “too little and too late” category. Merz sided with the hosts in Warsaw and demanded not to disappoint Poland. One problem is apparently that there was no precise agreement beforehand.
Merz visited the NATO troops led by the Bundeswehr in Rukla in Lithuania on Thursday evening. On Friday he wanted to speak to Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte in Vilnius.
