These tones are not new: Jaroslaw Kaczynski criticizes German "dominance" in Europe and even draws a parallel to the Second World War. The head of Poland's governing PiS wants to attract voters. But according to a survey, the anti-German policy is only well received by a minority.
The chairman of the Polish ruling party PiS, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has denounced German "dominance" in Europe. Kaczynski said at an appearance in south-west Poland that Germany now wants to use peaceful methods to realize plans that it once wanted to implement with military means.
According to Polish news agency PAP, Kaczynski said in his speech that Europe's strength lies in the strength of its sovereign states. The party leader condemned "the situation of dominance, a situation in which one of the European states, today the largest after Russia, is carrying out plans with peaceful methods that it once wanted to carry out with military methods".
This is a path that leads to crisis and misfortune - not only in Poland, but in all of Europe. "And also this country, Germany," continued Kaczynski, who is considered the most important strategist of the ruling right-wing populists. The PiS boss is traveling through the Polish provinces in the run-up to the parliamentary elections planned for autumn 2023. According to the Polish opposition, the ruling party's anti-German and Eurosceptic rhetoric is at least partly related to the election campaign.
However, the Germany policy of the national-conservative PiS government is not necessarily well received by the Poles. This is the result of a survey conducted by the SW Research institute on behalf of the daily newspaper "Rzeczpospolita". Accordingly, 50.5 percent of those surveyed rate the policy of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki's government towards Berlin negatively. In contrast, 18.7 percent endorse Morawiecki's course, and another 30.8 percent said they had no opinion on the subject.
Several actions by the PiS government had recently caused irritation in German-Polish relations. Ten days ago, Federal Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht and her Polish colleague Mariusz Blaszczak agreed that German Patriot air defense systems should be stationed in the NATO country to protect Polish airspace. Shortly thereafter, Blaszczak duped Berlin by proposing to station these systems in western Ukraine instead. PiS boss Kaczynski had previously brought the idea into play.
At the beginning of October, Poland had also demanded the equivalent of more than 1.3 trillion euros in compensation in a diplomatic note to Berlin for the damage suffered as a result of the Second World War and the German occupation. The federal government rejects any claims for reparations. For them, the question is closed with the 2 4 treaty on the foreign policy aspects of German unity.
