German Chancellor Angela Merkel will emphasise bilateral ties and the need for European unity when she meets with top Polish officials, amid ongoing differences between the allies over Polish judicial reforms, migration and a new gas pipeline. Merkel will meet with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda on Monday, using her second foreign trip since being sworn in for a fourth term to highlight Germany\u2019s commitment to the former Soviet bloc member at a time of heightened tensions with both Russia and the United States.<\/p>\n
The German leader must pull off a delicate balancing act \u2013 reassuring Poland about Berlin\u2019s commitment to NATO military spending targets and enlisting its backing for the European Union, without backing away from EU core principles that have been challenged by Poland\u2019s sweeping judicial changes. The stakes are high, given concerns that gains by anti-migrant parties in Austria and Italy could exacerbate tensions between Brussels and central European countries such as Poland.<\/p>\n
Polish government spokeswoman Joanna Kopcinska said Warsaw hoped for \u201ca good and pragmatic cooperation with Berlin.\u201d German government officials say they are upbeat, given Poland\u2019s growing concerns about Russian military aggression, uncertainty about US policy shifts, and Warsaw\u2019s pending loss of Britain as an ally opposing further euro zone expansion. \u201cMerkel has the chance to make clear to the Polish government that Europe\u2019s democrats must stand together against Putin and Trump, also for the sake of Poland,\u201d said Franziska Brantner, foreign policy spokeswoman for the German Greens.<\/p>\n
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, a Social Democrat, stressed close ties between the two neighbors during a meeting with Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz on Friday. The two men urged the revival of the Weimar Triangle, a platform of political cooperation between Germany, France and Poland created in 1991. Foreign ministers from the three countries last met in Weimar in August 2016. \u201cThe visit of Chancellor Merkel shows that Germany cares about good relations with Poland,\u201d said Michal Baranowski, head of the Warsaw office of the German Marshall Fund. \u201c(It) shows a desire at the highest level to fix the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
German Chancellor Angela Merkel will emphasise bilateral ties and the need for European unity when she meets with top Polish officials, amid ongoing differences between the allies over Polish judicial reforms, migration and a new gas pipeline. Merkel will meet with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Andrzej Duda on Monday, using her second foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25286,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25285"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25287,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25285\/revisions\/25287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}