Why Germany and Poland Have Fallen Out (again)

this video was brought to you by imprint When Donald tusk was elected polish prime minister last year many people thought his return would Mark the beginning of a new and better relationship with Germany because while Germany and much of the rest of Europe hadn't got on that well with tusk's predecessors the national conservative Law And Justice party both Tusk and German Chancellor Olaf Schultz are pro-european centus with relatively similar politics who have known each other for over a decade but despite some optimistic signs last year several more recent events have seemingly caused tensions to flare up once again so in this video we'll take a look at the rocky German polish relationship why tensions are rising and what might happen [Music] next before we start if you haven't already please consider subscribing and ringing the bell to stay in the loop and be notified when we release new videos but first let's start with some context at Poland's election back in December Donald tusk's Centrist Civic Coalition came to power ending 8 years of rule by the right-wing Law And Justice party under the Nationalist pis anti-german sentiment Rose steeply in Poland and in 2021 the P's leader even warned that the EU was in danger of becoming a fourth Reich under German dominance the pis also campaigned heavily for reparations for the Nazi occupation of Poland during World War II which led to the death of nearly 6 million poles more than a fifth of its population so in 2022 Poland's former prime minister demanded 1.3 trillion EUR about a third of Germany's total GDP in reparations from the German government which was swiftly struck down by Berlin on the other side most of Germany saw the pis as disagreeably populist and euroskeptic and relations between Berlin and warsa became extremely tense arguably the worst they'd been since 1990 when Germany's post reunification Chancellor helmet Cole caused outrage by saying that he'd refused to recognize the current border between Eastern Germany and Poland unless Poland promis not to seek reparations anyway when Tusk narrowly defeated the pis in December Germany's Center left coalition government probably breathed the more sigh of relief with Schultz in Berlin Central Europe was now led by two Centrist dad figures who could seemingly get on with rebuilding trust leading support for Ukraine and strengthening cooperation on issues like security defense and culture and originally it looked like things were going to plan the Revival of the so-called viar triangle was perhaps the most visible expression of this new polish German affinity and many Europeans as well as ukrainians hope that better cooperation between Germany Poland and France would improve Europe's military capacity in fact in June Germany's Parliament also voted to establish a German polish house in Berlin to create a memorial site for the Polish victims of the Nazi occupation and in July Schulz said that Germany was prepared to compensate living polish victims of the Nazi occupation which tur described as a good gesture the two countries then published a German polish action plan with set out a number of other cultural ways to improve German polish relations such as through Civil Society Partnerships the promotion of a joint history textbook and the reinstatement of the annual polish German award however in the past couple of months relations do seem to have taken a downturn and as we see it there are two main issues nordstream and Ukraine the first is Poland's apparent refusal to execute a German arrest warrant over the destruction of the nordstream gas pipeline for context back in September 2022 a series of underwater explosions damaged the multibillion dollar nordstream 1 and two pipelines in the Baltic Sea which had carried natural gas from Russia to Germany earlier in the month it was reported that an arrest warrant had been made by German prosecutors for a Ukrainian citizen a diving instructor who' been a resident in a Polish town near wara Germany believes that a group of ukrainians used a small sailing yacht which stopped at a Polish port to destroy the pipelines and a former head of Germany's intelligence agency also claims that the sabotage may have been carried out with the agreement of the Polish president and the Ukrainian president allegations that zalinski has denied according to the Wall Street Journal polish prosecutors at first refused the warrant by claiming that they'd found an error in the German request and then reportedly sent a letter to Germany saying that the man named only as Vladimir Zed had already left Poland now none of this went down well with Germany but things got a lot worse when Tusk issued a tweet essentially telling Germany to quote apologize and keep quiet another adjacent issue causing a rift between Poland and Germany is the war in Ukraine itself last week German Finance Minister Christian Lindner warned the rest of the government that he would veto any payment request for ke effectively blocking military aid and support for Ukraine does seem to be waning particularly in Germany's eastern states where the relatively pro- Russia BSW and afd parties are currently rising in the polls now we should mention that Germany has already committed 4 billion euros to ukraini in military aid over the next year more than any other EU country but Poland still feels that Germany should be doing more with t calling on Germany last month to increase its security presence on the eu's eastern border saying that it is also in the interest of the German State moreover there's also been disagreement between Poland and Germany over the financing of The Joint Defense initiatives while Poland and other Baltic states have proposed joint initiatives like the defense line along the eu's eastern border or an EU a defense system similar to Israel's Iron Dome Germany opposes using joint borrowing at an EU level I.E borrowing done via the EU rather than National governments in order to fund these projects so where does the relationship actually go from here well to be honest things don't look good tensions over nordstream are unlikely to die down anytime soon not least because as we mentioned earlier the rise of Ukraine skeptic parties like the afd and BSW mean that the issue won't go away in Germany similarly even though it's true that Germany has provided more support for Ukraine than basically any other European country its continued economic woes and restrictive borrowing practices mean that the investment in either Ukraine or European Defense the many Eastern European countries would like to see is unlikely to materialize ultimately while German polish relations may have had a fresh start when Tusk first came into office several cracks in the shorts Tusk friendship and now clearly starting to show if you want to keep learning the very best way is through imprint that's the brand new way to learn built from the ground up and seriously unless you've 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