Debt Crisis Bring Former Foes — Poland and Germany — Closer Than Ever

For all the damage wrought by the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, it has brought even greater harmony to the fraught and often bloody historical relationship between Poland and Germany. In the midst of discord, the former foes find themselves closer than ever, perhaps paving the way to a new axis of Paris, Berlin and Warsaw that could eventually form the core of a more deeply integrated Europe.

Poland is a crucial supporting player in the euro drama that is reaching a crossroads with the summit meeting Thursday and Friday in Brussels. It represents a scarce commodity — a growing economy with enthusiasm for European integration — and even plans to eventually join the euro zone.

“There is no Plan B for Poland other than Europe: stronger Europe, more active Europe, economically but also politically,” said Eugeniusz Smolar, a foreign policy expert at the Polish Institute of International Affairs in Warsaw.

Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, supports Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany in her push for full treaty changes to mandate tighter budget rules and oversight, rather than a deal between the countries that use the euro. And in the wheeling and dealing behind the scenes to reach agreement in Brussels, Poland has several advantages.

It has close ties to former Soviet bloc countries as well as northern European countries like Sweden that do not use the euro. Poland occupies a special place as the leader among the nations that are not in the euro zone but have not officially opted out, and it has voluntarily joined the Euro Plus Pact to improve fiscal strength and competitiveness. It even stands to displace Britain’s waning influence, depending on how events turn.

Poland’s enthusiastic support for European integration stands in stark contrast to Britain’s constant demands for exceptions, carve-outs and caveats.

And Poland’s suffering at German and Russian hands, its history of invasion, partition and occupation, puts Polish leaders in a unique position to calm rising concerns of German dominance within Europe.

In an address last week in Berlin, Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said that the greatest threat to Poland’s security was not Russian missiles or the Taliban and that “it’s certainly not German tanks.” Instead, Mr. Sikorski said, it was the collapse of the euro zone that offered the paramount danger to his country, and he said he demanded that Germany “as Europe’s indispensible nation” take responsibility and lead.

“I will probably be the first Polish foreign minister in history to say so, but here it is,” Mr. Sikorski said, in a line that has been quoted time and again since, in a speech that has government and foreign policy circles in Berlin still buzzing. “I fear German power less than I am beginning to fear German inactivity.”

Many Polish politicians said that Mr. Sikorski went too far in calling for a federal Europe, offering to give up their hard-won sovereignty. And few are clamoring to join the euro quickly, preferring to wait until some resolution to the present crisis has been found.

The greater concern among Poles is being left behind as countries integrate their economies more deeply. Mr. Tusk will be pushing for an agreement that involves all 27 members of the European Union, said Bartek Nowak, executive director of the Center for International Relations in Warsaw. Even if Germany and France lead the way to an agreement among the 17 European Union countries that use the euro, Poland may choose to participate.

“If the 17 decide to improve their economic governance, I think Poland will join voluntarily because Poland wants to join the euro zone,” Mr. Nowak said.

A senior German official told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that Germany and France would move ahead with the 17 members of the euro zone rather than the 27 members of the European Union, if necessary, to enact reforms that would make fiscal discipline mandatory. But the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, singled out Poland as an example of a country that had not yet adopted the euro but would be able to take part in the new system.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/09/world/europe/debt-crisis-bring-former-foes-poland-and-germany-closer-than-ever.html?partner=rss&emc=rss