Enlarge image
Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki: "Germany and Poland are neighbors and friends"
Photo: RADEK PIETRUSZKA / EPA
During his first visit to Poland, Chancellor Olaf Scholz emphasized the importance of good neighborliness.
"Germany and Poland are neighbors and friends," said the SPD politician on Sunday after a meeting with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
Scholz has also assured the Polish government of support in the dispute over the refugees in the border area with Belarus. The approach of the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is "inhuman and we have a common task to reject it," said Scholz in Warsaw. Germany wanted to act in solidarity with Poland against this inadequate way of "hybrid warfare".
The EU accuses Lukashenko of having purposefully smuggled refugees to the Polish-Belarusian border.
"I presented the Chancellor with the changed tactics that the Lukashenko regime is now using in this artificially triggered migration crisis, the use of people as living shields, as weapons," said Morawiecki at the press conference with Scholz.
He spoke of more than 100 attempts to cross the border.
Morawiecki announced that the EU summit next week would discuss further economic sanctions against Belarus.
No open confrontation
Both also spoke about EU criticism of the lack of the rule of law in Poland, but avoided an open confrontation. He very much hopes that the EU Commission and the Polish government will come to an agreement, Scholz simply said and reminded of how fundamental the common values and the rule of law are for the EU. Morawiecki recalled how much Germany's trade with Eastern European countries such as Poland had grown in recent years.
Both politicians expressed clear differences of opinion on the further development of the EU. Morawiecki criticized the statement in the coalition agreement of the traffic light parties that the EU should develop into a European federal state. This is a "bureaucratic centralism". He said this to Scholz. "Europe will be strong if it is a Europe of sovereign states, of fatherlands." "Harmonization" is not a good method for the functioning of Europe, he added. "We appreciate our independence."
Scholz then said that Germany was very pro-European.
"We feel responsible that Europe as a whole succeeds." One must avoid divisions in north and south, east and west.
There was also talk of the federal government calling for the abolition of the unanimity rule in the EU on foreign policy decisions.
Morawiecki advocates »not allowing the opening of Nord Stream 2 at all«
Well-known differences were also evident in the positions on the German-Russian Baltic Sea gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, which Morawiecki requested. "It would be best not to allow Nord Stream 2 to open at all," he said. Scholz said that the situation on the border between Ukraine and Russia will also be discussed at the EU meeting. “We make it very clear that the borders in Europe cannot be violated. Nobody should think that they could be injured without serious consequences, ”he added to Moscow, without giving any details.
Scholz also underlined Germany's negative attitude towards reparations for the damage caused in Poland during the Second World War. "We have contracts that are valid and have settled the issues of the past and the compensation payments," he said. "Nevertheless, we still feel obliged to take into account the moral consequences of the many destructions that Germans have caused in Poland and in many other places around the world." He is therefore happy that a memorial to the Polish victims of the Second World War is supposed to arise.
What was new was that Scholz referred to the German contributions to the EU budget in connection with the Polish reparation claims, from which Poland also benefits. "Otherwise that is just one more reason that Germany is ready, willing and will continue to be ready and willing to make very, very high contributions to the financing of the budget of the European Union," he said. For the Federal Government, the issue of reparations to Poland is legally and politically closed. It mainly refers to the Two-Plus-Four Treaty on the Foreign Policy Consequences of German Unity of 1990.
On Friday, on his first trip abroad as Chancellor, Scholz first visited Paris and Brussels.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also traveled to Warsaw on Friday after visiting Paris and Brussels.
Poland has long been accused by the EU Commission and other member states of violating democratic rights and community rules.
The Polish Constitutional Court ruled that the EU Treaty was subordinate to the Polish constitution.
The EU Commission wants to link the payment of parts of the 36 billion euros to Poland from the Corona reconstruction fund to the fact that the country complies with central principles of the rule of law.
jso / Reuters / dpa