France and Germany approach Poland as third hard core country, rather than adding Italy or Spain

Leaving aside the criticisms of recent years of Polish judicial reforms, Paris and Berlin are seeking a special cooperation Degree with Poland so that it does not play the role of European gateway to Washington's influence that used to belong to the United Kingdom. For the French and Germans, Poland seems a more reliable partner than Italy and Spain, whose political instability complicates the elaboration of medium- and long-term security and defense strategies.

▲ Macron with the Polish president and prime minister during his visit to Warsaw February 2020 [Elysee Palace].

article / Jokin de Carlos Sola

The European committee is perhaps the most important body of the EU. In charge of setting objectives, it marks the diary to the Parliament and the Commission. It is in this body that the states are represented as such and where issues such as the weight of the population and the Economics of each country take on particular importance.

France and Germany thus achieve their great relevance in the European committee , where in addition their ideological influence on other European governments translates into an unofficial leadership of the Union. Both countries have wanted to establish a special cooperation Degree with Poland, in order to gain influence over one of the countries that follows them in population and thus reduce the presence of the United States in Europe. This three-way partnership is embodied in the Weimar Triangle.

On the other hand, the Brexit has opened an unofficial degree program to know who will be the third most influential country in the European Union. All this at a time when politicians like Emmanuel Macron or Ursula von der Leyen are calling for the strengthening of a common foreign policy. The Netherlands, under Mark Rutte, has sought to achieve that position through alliances with ideologically like-minded countries in the so-called New Hanseatic League. However, Poland also seems to have supporters for the position. Italy and Spain, two of the largest countries, seem to have fallen out of this degree program . 

Recovering a forgotten idea

The Weimar Triangle was born in 1991, with the aim of helping Poland to emerge from communism, goal . In that year a meeting was held between the foreign ministers of the three countries: Roland Dumas, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Krzysztof Skubiszewski. With that meeting, Poland managed to get France and Germany to give it special consideration among the European countries that had been on the other side of the Iron Curtain and would soon join NATO and later the EU (Poland joined the Atlantic Alliance in 1999 and in 2004 the EU).

Since then, representatives of the three governments have met relatively frequently. Until 2016 there were eight summits of the heads of state, as well as 23 meetings of foreign ministers and two meetings of defense officials. In 2013 the three countries decided to form a battalion under EU command (one of 18), under the name group Combat Weimar or Weimar Battalion, consisting of officers and soldiers from the three countries.

Since 2015, however, relations began to cool as a result of the coming to power in Poland of the Law and Justice party, which is much more Atlanticist and less tolerant towards Russia. In 2016, Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski went so far as to declare that the Weimar Triangle was of no major importance to his country. That same year there was an attempt to revive tripartite cooperation with a meeting of the three foreign ministers to tackle issues such as Brexit or the refugee crisis, but without much success.

During the next three years cooperation declined and there was French and German criticism of the Polish government. The replacement of Waszczykowski moderated the demonstrations in Warsaw, but relations were not as smooth as at the beginning. Poland's unease towards Berlin was mainly due to the construction of Nord Stream 2 (the doubling of the gas pipeline directly linking Germany and Russia); the distrust towards Paris was due to its apparent sympathy with Moscow. For its part, especially after Macron's arrival at the Elysée, France began to feel distrust towards Poland because of its close relationship with Washington.

However, as of 2019, a new rapprochement began to take place. France came to think that it is better to have Poland close to it and thus alienate the United States, while Poland considered that it could actually make its closeness to France and Germany compatible with U.S. military support to defend itself against Russia. In February 2020 Macron visited Warsaw and met with President Duda and Prime Minister Morawiecki to improve relations between the two countries and revive the Triangle idea.

Marginalization of Spain and Italy

It may come as a surprise that Germany and France are looking to Poland instead of wanting to rely more on Italy or Spain, countries not only with larger populations but also larger economies. But the reasons are clear. Despite the divergences in foreign policy between France and Poland, it is undeniable that the Slavic country is able to offer something that neither Spain nor Italy can provide: stability. Since 2016 the two Mediterranean countries have been experiencing one domestic political crisis after another, forcing their governments to keep foreign policy issues on the back burner.

In Spain no government has had an absolute majority in Parliament since 2015, and it does not look like that will change. Between 2015 and 2019 there have been four general elections and two prime ministers. This status makes it difficult to pass laws, including the fundamental budget, without which no foreign policy compromise can be expected.

In Italy the beginning of the tornado started with the fall of Matteo Renzi at the end of 2016. Since then the country has seen two prime ministers and three governments. This may not be surprising in the Italian case, but certainly the perceived instability is now greater. In addition, there is distrust from other European partners over Italy's dealings with China over the New Silk Road, something that generally causes more concern than Poland's flirtations with the United States. In geopolitical terms, the possibility of a political crisis making Salvini, who has not been subtle in his admiration for Putin's Russia, prime minister is also a cause for concern. 

On the contrary, despite having changed prime minister and cabinet in 2018, Poland has shown a clear foreign policy line since Law and Justice came to power, as well as steady economic growth. After the victory in the 2019 elections everything seems to indicate that Mateusz Morawiecki will remain prime minister until at least 2023. Such policy durability makes Poland a more attractive ally, despite tensions over Poland's controversial judicial reforms.

On the other hand, coordination with Poland offers Paris and Berlin a way to further integrate the countries of the former Soviet bloc into the decision-making process of the European Union.