Poland: the leader of the ruling party attacks “German domination”

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The chairman of Poland's ruling conservative nationalist party, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, on Saturday denounced Germany's “dominance” in Europe, accusing it of wanting to carry out through peaceful methods “the plans that it had wanted to achieve in the past by military methods”. 

Mr. Kaczynski, considered the strongman and main strategist of the right in power, accustomed to attacks against Germany and the European Union, gave a speech in Legnica, in the south-west of the country, in the as part of his tour of the provinces in view of the legislative elections scheduled for autumn 2023.

He declared, according to the PAP agency, that the strength of Europe lies in that of its nations and, in a great extent, in that of sovereign states. 

He denounced “the situation of domination, a situation where, by peaceful methods, one of the European states, today the largest after Russia, realizes plans that it once wanted to realize by military methods. It is a path that leads to crisis and unhappiness. Not only from Poland, but also from Europe. And also from this country, Germany,” Kaczynski said.

Along with the anti-German and Eurosceptic rhetoric, which the Polish opposition believes is at least partly linked to the election campaign, the Polish authorities recently launched a diplomatic offensive to demand reparations from Germany for the Second World War, estimated by Warsaw at 1300 billion euros.

According to Germany, Poland has renounced war reparations in 1953 and confirmed this waiver on several occasions.

It was in this context that Warsaw declined the German offer at the end of November to send it the Patriot air defense system, after the deadly fall of a missile in Poland. The Polish government has suggested that Germany transfer this equipment to Ukraine.