Germany has reportedly blocked Poland’s involvement in a key meeting on Ukraine.
Former Estonian president Thomas Ilves has gone on the record claiming that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz blocked Polish participation in a meeting in Berlin hosted by the Germans on the war.
The gathering on October 18 was also attended by US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron Macron, and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
The four countries’ respective defence secretaries also met at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels to discuss their shared commitment to support Ukraine and work toward stability in the Middle East.
Commenting on the Berlin meeting, Ilves claimed he had been told that Scholz had “personally blocked Polish participation”.
Several social media users jokingly referred to a famous quote from 2004 when, during a presidential debate, former US president George W Bush told former US Secretary of State John Kerry: “You forgot Poland.”
Poland’s non-attendance in Berlin was also criticised by Jacek Siewiera, head of Polish President Andrzej Duda’s National Security Bureau, who pointedly published a picture of the four leaders looking over the map of Europe in an allusion to post-war conferences from which Poland was excluded.
Siewiera wrote that holding a meeting of three Western European States to discuss a war taking place on the east of the continent while omitting representatives of Poland, the Baltic states and Nordic countries, showed that “someone seriously misunderstood the changes that have taken place on the continent since the beginning of 2022”.
The opposition Law and Justice used the issue to take aim at the country’s current government, criticising the Tusk administration for failing to be at the table in Berlin.
Representatives from the party claimed that Poland’s exclusion undermined the PM’s claims of being a key decision-maker in Europe, and that the country was being increasingly marginalised.
During the lifetime of the previous Tusk-led government (2007-2015) Poland was excluded from the Normandy format established following the annexation of Crimea and separatist rebellions in the Donbas under which Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia tried to reach an agreement over the disputed territory in the Donbas.
Since 2022, Poland has served as a hub for military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine and has been mentioned as potentially being one of the future guarantors of Ukrainian security.
Poland also currently spends the highest percentage of its GDP on defence in NATO and has the third-largest army in the pact.
Tensions exist between Warsaw and Berlin over migration, energy policy and, in the past, about relations with Russia. Poland also believes that Germany has failed to compensate it for damages incurred as a result of the German invasion and occupation during the Second World War.
