The coincidence of dates is symbolic. On the day when the Polish President, Andrzej Duda, convened, on Friday January 28, a national security council in order to discuss, in consultation with the opposition, the latent security crisis which threatens the region, the Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, was going to Madrid to take part in the meeting of European sovereigntist and far-right parties in search of an alliance. Among the nine members present, including Marine Le Pen and the Hungarian Viktor Orban, the head of the Polish government was the only representative of a State explicitly critical of the intentions of the Kremlin.
If Polish diplomacy, isolationist and subordinated to the logic of internal politics since 2015, can be confronted with its innumerable contradictions, the Ukrainian security crisis, judged in the corridors of the Ministry of Defense as “the most serious since the end of the Second World War”, had the merit of putting two key national consensuses back on the agenda. The first was theorized by the intellectual Jerzy Giedroyc (1906-2000): a Ukraine free from the yoke of Moscow is a sine qua non of long-term Polish security and independence. The current crisis is thus perceived not as a local conflict on the periphery of Europe, but as an existential threat. In this respect, the relativism of certain States of Western Europe, France and Germany in the lead, is exasperating.
Franco-German couple castigated
The second consensus concerns the very nature of the European project. The Poles have never been great enthusiasts for European strategic autonomy in matters of security and defense – the great French creed –, considering that their security could not do without American guarantees. The current crisis has deeply strengthened them in this conviction. For the most part politicians and analysts, in this “great moment of truth” Europe not only fails in its duty of unity and action, but sends back a disastrous image. And the Franco-German couple finds itself, here too, among the first responsible.
“I observe with concern the situation in Ukraine and the reactions of our German neighbors to the Russian threatcommunicated, on January 25, the Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki. Germany’s refusal to accept the supply of arms from Estonia to Ukraine, a state preparing to defend itself against an aggressor, is a great disappointment. Unfortunately, the dark scenario that we have been warning for a long time is happening: the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, the gas blackmail of Russia, the billions invested by Putin in Europe give him the tools to terrorize other countries Europeans. » Some commentators do not hesitate to point ” hypocrisy “ of Berlin in its refusal to support Ukraine militarily, as Germany remains a leading arms exporter.
You have 39.79% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.