Andrew Tettenborn

Poland wants reparations from Germany

They may get something more valuable

A reenactment of the Warsaw uprising (Getty)

If you think British politics is cracked, spare a thought for Europe. A spat between Germany and Poland is rapidly developing into a full-scale row involving not only those countries but the EU as a whole.

Just a couple of weeks ago, Polish foreign minister Zbigniew Rau of the ruling PiS (Law and Justice) party handed an explosive diplomatic note to his German equivalent, Annalena Baerbock, on a visit to Warsaw to discuss security. In it was a formal legal demand that Berlin pay a cool €1.3 trillion in reparations for damage done to the Polish state during world war two. Ms Baerbock instantly made it clear that in the view of the German government the issue of reparations for events 80 years ago was long closed and it did not owe a cent.

How will all this end? Probably in a messy compromise. True, Berlin could simply stonewall Warsaw

Since then matters have escalated. Polish President Andrzej Duda has pressed the matter with the German President. Meanwhile, the leading Polish hawk, Sejm deputy Arkadiusz Mularczyk, insists that Germany must pay up, and has called on the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe to debate the matter. More recently, a short film from German broadcaster DW doubting the legitimacy of the claim drew irate accusations of fact-bending from Poland, including from premier Mateusz Morawiecki. The matter has spread even to our shores: a few days ago Tory MP Daniel Kawczyński unequivocally weighed in on the Polish side.

There is, of course, more to this than meets the eye. In terms of strict legalities, Poland’s claim is less watertight than it looks. There is a respectable, though controversial, argument that it has become barred through delay (though intermittently referred to, reparations were first seriously advanced in 2015, 70 years after 1945). In addition, Poland not only agreed in 1953 to abandon any claim, a pact many international lawyers regard as valid despite Poland’s then subjugation to Russia, but also arguably stated in 2004 that it did not see the issue as being a live one.

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