DW: An international conference on reparations with Greece as well?
From Berlin its deputy foreign minister Poland, Arkadius Mularczyk, was in favor of the conduct International Conference with all interested countries for the German reparations -among which and Greece.
“Poland is increasing the pressure to Germany for war reparations” reports the ZDF network on the occasion of the bilateral visit to Berlin (December 6 and 7) of the Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Charge d’Affaires for War Reparations, Arkadiusz Mularczyk, as its report states Deutsche Welle.
In fact, he has recently been the international representative of the country for the claim by Germany compensation amounts to 1.3 trillion eurosthe concretizations by a special committee of the Polish parliament and have already been delivered to the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Tones rose from the Polish side already before the official start of the two-day conference and the meeting of Arkadiusz Mularczyk with the German Deputy Foreign Minister responsible for European Affairs, Anna Luhrmann.
The occasion was Mularchik’s statements to the German news agency dpa. “The issue of war reparations is fundamental for Poland,” he said a step further:
“Germany now has only one choice: To sit at the negotiating table with Poland or for Warsaw to raise the issue in all international forums: the UN, the Council of Europe, the EU.”
Warsaw calls for an international conference
In fact, the following Polish proposal also provokes: “In addition to the bilateral talks, an International Conference should also be held on the issue because it concerns many other countries.”
The fact is that apart from Poland and Greece continuously claims war reparations from Germany, which, as available to all Greek governments throughout time, remain active in their entirety. At the moment, however, there have been no Greek reactions to the statements of the Polish Deputy Foreign Minister.
Arkadys Mularczyk continues: “It is not possible that the German government will not take up the matter until the next federal elections. A dialogue must be held because, otherwise, the consequences would be negative for our neighborhood.” According to dpa already two weeks ago Poland sent official diplomatic note in 51 countries of the EU, NATO and the Council of Europe communicating its positions on the issue and “asking for understanding”.
However, the Polish side does not seem willing to tone down. “Nothing under the carpet” emphasized the Polish deputy minister, commenting on the permanent German position that the issue of war reparations ended with the 2 plus 4 agreement of 1990. Germany has been following since the 1950s the policy of “oblivion, limitation and oblivion” he says, speaking of “people in Poland who have been looking for justice all their lives and have not found it” while they are being paid in Germany “to former Wehrmacht soldiers and members of the SS”.
A new level of assertion or a pre-election weapon of PiS?
According to observers in Germany, those who are deeply familiar with German-Polish relations, indeed the Polish claims are now moving to a new level by putting an official “internationalization” scenario on the table.
Warsaw, they estimate, is increasing the pressure on Germany using all the diplomatic, legal and political means at its disposal. However, these moves should be seen in the light of (and) the following critical ones parliamentary elections, possibly next fall. High on the agenda of the ultraconservative PiS will be Poland’s 1.33-euro claims against Germany, given that the majority of Poles see their claim as valid. At the same time, a large part of the electorate is governed by “anti-German” sentiments, which PiS seeks to exploit politically. It also remains to be seen what stance Greece will take on this issue, according to the same sources,
On the other hand, authoritative sources in Berlin, who would perhaps see positively the possibility of an “honest dialogue” with Poland, estimate that the amount of 1.3 trillion. Euros are objectively unrealistic under today’s conditions. The question is also raised by some whether such a dialogue with countries like Poland or Greece is only “honest” and not just an opportunistic vehicle for construction at the level of domestic politics.
However, it is interesting to highlight the historian and scholar of Polish (as well as Greek) claims for war reparations, Carl Heinz Roth, who was asked to comment to DW on the Polish claims, called the Polish parliamentary expert report “compact” in terms of documentation and “excellent in the picture it gives of the total damage suffered by Poland at the hands of the Nazis, having lost 40 % of its GDP”. In fact, he characterizes the Greek claims as equally “compact”, despite their differences with the Polish ones in terms of their content, scope and methodology.