Germany and Poland are set to deepen their cooperation 35 years after the signing of their neighbourhood treaty, including in the military sphere. In Warsaw, the defence ministers of both countries signed a revised agreement on Wednesday providing for enhanced military coordination and the deployment of German soldiers to help secure Poland's eastern border.
In Berlin, the two foreign ministers published a declaration targeting, among other things, the expansion of cross-border transport links and partnerships in digitalisation and artificial intelligence. "We stand together, unequivocally, come what may": that was the message of the revised defence agreement, said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) before around 700 guests at the German-Polish Forum at the Foreign Office in Berlin.
The "Russian threat" required Poland and Germany to work together "as closely as possible on military and security policy matters." German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) said in Warsaw that the new agreement was opening "another chapter in the history of our close friendship." "Germany and Poland are jointly taking on responsibility for security in Europe," he added.
Polish Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said at the meeting with Wadephul in Berlin that Germany and Poland wished to "engage jointly in strengthening the NATO eastern flank and in bolstering security in the Baltic region."
Poland is the only NATO member state that shares borders with both Russia and Ukraine. Against the backdrop of Russia's war of aggression, Warsaw has been placing increased emphasis on strengthening its defence capabilities. In this context, the Polish government has already signed defence agreements with France and the United Kingdom.
The revised German-Polish defence agreement builds on an existing framework agreement from 2011. According to the Polish Ministry of Defence, the new version provides for enhanced military coordination between the two countries to enable closer cooperation in the areas of the Baltic Sea, space, critical infrastructure, and cybersecurity.
The text is also designed to pave the way for German soldiers to support Poland in strengthening its eastern borders, from July, they are set to be deployed at the border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, according to information from Warsaw.
However, the agreement does not include mutual security guarantees going beyond existing obligations under NATO and the EU. According to Polish media reports, the government of pro-Western Prime Minister Donald Tusk had initially planned a more far-reaching agreement, but abandoned this plan due to resistance from nationalist-right President Karol Nawrocki, whose relationship with Germany is considered difficult.
"We all know the obsession of PiS and the president with everything related to Germany," Foreign Minister Sikorski recently told Polish media. "Of course he would have vetoed it."
In their joint declaration in Berlin, the two foreign ministers warned of the threat posed by Russia. "The aggressive actions of Russia, particularly of a hybrid nature and in the area of disinformation, are also directed at us," they wrote. "The German-Polish partnership is and remains a key pillar of a strong, united Europe and a resilient NATO."
While cooperation between the two countries had reached an "unprecedented level," the foreign ministers wrote in the declaration, this was still not enough: "To fully harness the social and economic potential, we need new impetus." Poland and Germany "can achieve more, it is a matter of our freedom, security, and prosperity." Wadephul called, for instance, for the establishment of a high-speed rail link between Warsaw and Berlin, to be extended onwards to Paris.
Sikorski used his visit to Berlin to reiterate the demand for swift compensation for the roughly 50,000 still-living victims of the German occupation during the Second World War. Poland expected "reparation in the moral sense and also in the material sense," said Sikorski. "The Federal Republic of Germany should take this seriously and should really address this challenge quickly."
Wadephul made no commitment on this point, but indicated that the compensation demand would be taken into account in Germany's upcoming budget deliberations. "Responsibility is also expressed through the capacity to make gestures," he said.
Sikorski also criticised the ongoing controls at the German-Polish border, which the German government has put in place to curb the entry of migrants. Wadephul expressed his expectation that the implementation of the new EU asylum agreement would render the border controls unnecessary before long.
At the German-Polish Forum in Berlin, Germany returned a number of cultural artefacts to Poland that had been seized during the German occupation of Poland in the Second World War. Among them was a medieval manuscript containing a fragment of the hymn "Gaude Mater Polonia" from the late 14th century. Wadephul pledged further restitutions.
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