WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The heads of government of Poland and Germany held broad bilateral talks on Tuesday to revive neighborhood ties that had deteriorated under the previous Polish government and take joint responsibility for Europe’s security in turbulent times.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveled with 12 ministers and government members, including Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, to the meeting in Warsaw.
“We are sending a very clear message: Germany and Poland are good neighbours, close partners and reliable friends. And we want to create a new dynamic for our cooperation,” Scholz told a joint press conference with Tusk.
He stressed that “close cooperation between Germany and Poland is very important to us.”
Such broad consultations last took place in November 2018. After that, Poland’s right-wing government, in power until last year, took a hostile stance toward Berlin, accusing Germany of exercising excessive influence over EU decision-making and focusing on demands for reparations for losses caused by the Nazi German occupation of Poland during World War II.
Tusk’s government, which took office in December, is taking steps to restore ties, which have taken on special significance in light of Russia’s war on Ukraine, just across Poland’s eastern border with the 27 EU member states, and pressure from irregular migration from the Middle East and Africa, which Poland and the EU say is part of Russia and its ally Belarus’ hybrid war on Europe.
Tusk, a former head of the EU Council, said the security of Poland and the continent was his priority and that “no one should have any doubts about the importance of good cooperation in this area between Poland and Germany.”
Tusk said he was pleased to hear Scholz’s statement that Germany is ready to take co-responsibility for the security of Poland’s eastern border, investing in infrastructure and other security needs there. He criticized European countries for not being coordinated and determined to take steps for the common security of the continent.
“The security of Germany and Poland is inextricably linked. This means that the security of Poland is also the security of Germany,” Scholz said.
“This is what we stand for as neighbours, as NATO allies and as partners in the European Union. Our solidarity and our joint action are our common strength,” he said.
Scholz also pledged to “take measures to support the surviving victims of the German attack and occupation in the years 1939-45” in Poland and to “strengthen the memory and commemoration of our painful shared history” by commemorating the Polish victims through the establishment of a German-Polish House that “is intended to be a visible sign against forgetting and a warning for the future.”
