AP
Warsaw
Germany and Poland were set to sign a new defence agreement on Wednesday, putting aside their complicated past to strengthen European military cooperation at a time of heightened tension with Russia and growing uncertainty over US engagement in Europe.
Relations between the two neighbours in recent years have become more pragmatic in the wake of Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine in 2022 and the coming to power of a liberal government in Poland in 2023.
As the US weighs a partial drawdown of its military presence in Europe, Poland is keen to ensure that major European allies take a greater role in defending the continent’s eastern flank.
Germany is seeking partners as it moves to revitalize its military, the Bundeswehr, after decades of neglect with ambitions to build the strongest conventional army on NATO’s European side – an effort that will make it a central pillar of European defence in the years ahead.
Poland’s importance as a logistics hub for Ukraine, alongside its growing economy and heavy defence investment, has made it a compelling partner for Germany and other core European countries.
“We Germans need a strong Poland as an equal partner,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said in Berlin after meeting with liberal Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in December. “This is in our fundamental interest.”
The defence agreement is set to include plans for protecting the Baltic Sea region and details about cooperation on military mobility and infrastructure, cyber defence and new technologies.
The two countries are irreversibly tied by NATO’s defence plans, which give Germany a key role in the defence of the Baltic region, together with Poland and other countries in the central and eastern European region, said Justyna Gotkowska, deputy director of the Warsaw-based think tank Center for Eastern Studies.
“Germany is largely responsible for the defence of the Baltic states and without cooperation with Poland, that will not happen,” Gotkowska said.
The Baltic countries are often referred to as the most likely target for Russia if it were to attack NATO territory in the future.
The defence agreement is expected to reaffirm the mutual defence obligations set out in NATO and European Union treaties, to which both countries are parties.
However, unlike bilateral treaties each has signed with France and the United Kingdom in recent years, the Polish-German agreement is inter-ministerial, focused on the practical aspects of military cooperation and does not include political mutual defence declarations that the bilateral treaties do.
When asked in June by Polish Radio Trojka why Poland is not signing a similar treaty with Germany, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said that President Karol Nawrocki, who came to power with the support of the national-conservative Law and Justice party, would never agree to that.
“Hell would break loose here” if a German-Polish treaty was signed, Sikorski said.
When Law and Justice was in power, the government demanded $1.3 trillion in reparations from Germany because of its World War II occupation of Poland – a demand Berlin has rejected.
The topic is likely to resurface ahead of next year’s general election, and Tusk will seek to avoid appearing soft or serving Berlin’s interests. Tusk himself has demanded that Germany move faster to compensate surviving victims of the occupation.
Despite Poland’s rising importance in Europe’s security architecture, Germany has preferred to make major decisions on Ukraine or Iran together with key Western European allies France and the UK only, leaving Warsaw aside.
On June 7, the three Western European countries received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in London, discussing the role they might play in potential future peace negotiations with Russia.
Tusk said at a news conference in Warsaw after the London meeting that he had complained to Merz that Poland should be part of the discussion about the future of Ukraine and the region. “Any arrangements made without our participation will not be respected or binding for us,” Tusk said.
Rolf Nikel, a former German ambassador to Poland and vice president of the German Council on Foreign Relations, said Poland’s role and significance within Europe and NATO have grown.
“So Poland must be taken more seriously today and, above all, must be respected more than we have seen in the past,” Nikel said.
Gotkowska, from the Centre for Eastern Studies, said that Germany needs to recognize that its economy has stagnated while Poland’s economy and military strength have risen.
“The balance of power has changed in Europe in recent years,” Gotkowska said.
