Don’t mention the war!

Berlin

Mentioning Poland’s suffering in World War II is usually a sure way to win sympathy and shut down argument. But this week Polish politicians may have pushed the “Christ of Nations” act a bit too far. Explaining his intransigence over EU vote distribution – which has led to a diplomatic train wreck at this week’s EU summit — President Lech Kaczynski told Polish radio the past justified the present. “We are merely demanding what was taken from us,” he said. “If Poland had not had to live through the years of 1939-45, Poland would be today looking at the demographics of a country of 66 million,” nearly double the current population of 38 million.

The reaction in Europe was, well, disappointed, with clucking from foreign ministers and editorial writers alike. One German newspaper likened Poland to “a rebellious teenager” unwilling to follow house rules; even Estonia, no stranger to WWII-related conflict, gently suggested Poles “stop living in the past.”