Source: https://twitter.com/prezydentpl/
On Monday February 2nd, a plane carrying French President Emmanuel Macron touched down in Warsaw, marking the first time he had visited Poland since he was elected nearly three years ago. Macron’s arrival in Warsaw was not just a stop-over either, as he spent two full days in Poland, visiting both the country’s current capital as well as the city of Kraków, and was flanked by the French minister of defence Florence Parly, minister of ecological and solidarity transition Elisabeth Bourne and finance minister Bruno Le Maire. Macron met with a number of high-ranking Polish officials including PM Morawiecki and President Duda, as well as the speakers of both chambers of the Polish Parliament; ministerial meetings were held between Polish and French counterparts.
Clearly, there must have been a lot to discuss. First, because this is the first time a French President has visited Poland since Francois Hollande in 2013. Second, because Polish-French relations hit rock-bottom a while ago and have remained there ever since. As a matter of fact, Macron has made the Polish government its punching bag, and a go-to subject of criticism from the early days of his presidency, but the roots of this spat go deeper, at least back to earliest days of the Law and Justice government, when Poland cancelled a major procurement program in the form of utility helicopters that Airbus had won with its H225M Caracal. Then came the never resolved submarine contract (in which the French Scorpene class vessel was also slated to win).
Nevertheless, it was Macron’s endless stream of accusations mixed with insults that has really soured Polish-French relations. From climate change and Poland’s reluctance to comply with the EU-proposed limits on CO2 emissions, through judiciary reform (a particular favourite for Macron), to what the French call unfair competition from Polish transport companies (and what everybody else calls lower cost of labour), the Elysee seemingly never missed a chance to throw a jab.
Therefore, since relations between the two countries could not really get any worse short of a war being declared, the visit became a low risk-high reward possibility for Macron; the word “reset” has been used more than once and Macron himself arrived with a wide spectrum of selling points, hoping that at least some may stick. Simply speaking, a chance to create openings for French companies scoring some contracts in Poland (military and civilian alike), while establishing friendlier diplomatic ground with the Poles, a country France has historically looked towards to balance the Germans just could not hurt – especially in the post-Brexit EU.
Insofar as diplomatic efforts are concerned, Macron proposed “reviving” the Weimar Triangle, an informal trilateral forum consisting of Poland, France and Germany; the last time those three states met within the format happened back in 2016, shortly before a Law and Justice win in the parliamentary elections which marked a decisive departure from the pro-EU stance held be the previous government towards the current ruling party’s far more Atlanticist orientation. Macron has also underscored that France shares Poland’s outlook on EU’s agricultural policy and multiannual financial framework – effectively a code word for loosening budgetary restraints – one of the great many things Germany will not enjoy, but Poland will be receptive towards.
Perhaps more important is the fat, that Macron arrived to Poland with some legitimate bargaining chips; there are a number of projects which, provided political support is present on both sides, can offer avenues for cooperation between the two states. Many of those projects nothing short of strategic, including the Solidarity Transport Hub project, nuclear power plants, and at least two large military procurement programs.
STH is at this time the most likely to yield actual cooperation with Paris; some EU funds have already been appropriated towards the French national railway operator SNCF providing know-how to the railway component of the STH project. Macron was also eager to offer French expertise in terms of nuclear energy; likewise Minister Le Maire noted that France is at Poland’s disposal when it comes to sharing nuclear technology. Both of these projects are staples of Poland’s infrastructure policy (as evidenced by the fact, that it was those two projects that were at the fore of Morawiecki’s recent visit to Japan). STH – a multimodal transport hub – is to become both an airport serving the entire region, as well as the centerpiece of an Intermarium-wide rail and road infrastructure network, while nuclear reactors (of which Poland wants to build 6 by 2040) are to enable Poland’s transition away from coal, satisfying the demands of Brussels.
During his visit, Macron also took time to advertise his idea of increased military cooperation within the EU, which – as he was quick to add – does not look to supplant, but rather supplement NATO. Here, the French president needed to tread softly; his remarks from a November interview with The Economist were met with strong criticism in Poland, a country positioning itself very closely to the United States. This was further compouned by Macron’s repeated – if as-of-now not particularly fruitful – efforts to reintegrate Russia into the international system and reorient the alliance towards combating terrorism in the Middle East, North Africa and Sahel. Likewise, it is believed that Macron tried to convince the Polish government to dispatch some of its forces – presumably special operations units – to Sahel (allegedly, he tied this into the migrant relocation issue, promising France will not pressure Poland to accept refugees – something the current government – and the overwhelming majority of Poles – have vehemently opposed).
Poland may also be eager to join the next-gen tank (Main Ground Combat System, MGCS) project France and Germany are currently working on; with Russia being considered a perpetual threat and large-scale conventional warfare along the flat swathes of the North European Plain being the most likely conflict scenario, Poland finds itself in dire need of modern armour. So dire in fact, that after failing to purchase more Leopard 2 MBTs, it has recently turned to South Korea and its K2 tank in search of a viable product. This would be an interesting development in it’s own right, since allegedly both France and Germany were previously unwilling to allow Poland’s participation in the MGCS. Poland will also likely be poised to revisit its Orka (killer whale) submarine program – and since cruise missiles will likely be something the Polish MOD will want to see as a part of it, the French with their MdCN-equipped Scorpene could realistically hope to secure that contract as well.
Last but not least, during a press conference that followed his meeting with the Polish Prime Minister, Macron was also asked to elaborate on his idea of a Europe-based nuclear deterrent – an idea he has floated around before; irrespective of the fact that France lacks both the capability and the credibility to provide extended nuclear deterrence to Poland, the Baltic States and Romania (i.e. the only EU states that may actually need it), the threat emanating from the Russian escalate to de-escalate doctrine is an ever present concern for Polish stakeholders – and so all the statements pertaining to it are closely monitored. Ultimately, Macron danced around the questions, refusing to commit to the idea of developing a Europe-wide nuclear deterrent. The issue is bound to be revisited shortly however with the French president expected to lay out his vision on Friday, when he will present France’s defence strategy in the École Militaire.
So far it is unclear whether the visit will yield any solid results. It was certainly a PR win for the ruling Law and Justice party; while Macron has in the past used Poland as a negative example of a country turning away from liberal democracy towards “the dark forces of nationalism”, and accused it of assaulting the independent judiciary and dismantling the rule of law, the topic was very much non-existent this time around, and other than a couple of words delivered during his lecture at the Jagiellonian University – themselves wrapped in cotton and non-confrontational – the French president skipped the topic entirely. Macron’s visit also opens up a possibility for Poland to play a balancing game of its own; so far it has placed all its eggs into two baskets, exclusively relying on the United States for security and military equipment, while being firmly locked in the German supply chain. A chance to diversify – however nominal it may be – should be an interesting perspective for the Poles.
What is more interesting is what this visit might be saying about the power dynamics between Germany and France – especially bearing in mind the timing of Macron’s visit, which came two days after the United Kingdom left the European Union. The past years were clearly marked by an informal division of spheres of influence between Paris and Berlin; France was given a relatively free hand in dealing with the south of the continent (and by extension northern Africa and Sahel), while Germany had freedom of maneuver in the East. The fact that no French president has visited Poland (the largest country in the region by size, population, military capability, and economy) for the last seven years is a testament to that. While any developments in Poland particularly were met with close scrutiny of Berlin, from the protests over judiciary reforms to the Three Seas Initiative (in which Germany has requested – and been granted – observer status) – France has been largely absent from the region. Now however, with the UK distancing itself from the Continent – with that moderator gone, old dynamics may well be coming back into play between Berlin and Paris.
The German response to Macron’s visit to Warsaw was that of barely contained annoyance; Suddeutsche Zeitung called Macron’s recent moves “dangerous arrogance” and lamented the contempt Macron has exhibited towards Warsaw in the past years. FAZ noted Macron’s restraint in criticizing the judiciary reforms and France’s lukewarm response to the Nord Stream 2 project. All in all, it is hard not to notice that Germany is not particularly excited about France attempting to make a move in what Berlin considers to be its economic backyard and an integral part of its supply chain (even though Wallerstein would probably categorize it a little bit differently).
Berlin is surely aware of the historical imperatives driving France and Poland closer together. Poles and French share a long, if somewhat one-sided (and by now largely extinguished) friendship; it is no accident that the Polish national anthem references Napoleon by name, tying his exploits with Poland’s drive for independence. It was in Napoleonic France that Poland, freshly after being partitioned, vested its hopes at recreating an independent state. It was in Paris’ Hotel Lambert that the Polish elites found refuge following a series of failed uprisings in the 19th century. It was in France that the Polish elite once again settled after the disastrous outcome of the Second World War (and it was in Paris, where the ULB doctrine was formulated). That, of course is no accident; the reason for this continuous interest was the French search for a state able to contain a unified Germany – and similarly, Poland’s need to find external support against it. This was the case in the second part of nineteenth century, and so it was in the very early and very late stages of the Interwar Period. Not-so-coincidentally, the Polish-French relations were much cooler during late 1920’s and mid to late 1930’s, when France (alongside the UK and others) was happy to leave Poland to its own devices as far as dealing with Germany went.
Ultimately, even though Macron himself, with his numerous-if-hectic ideas, might not be able to secure any long lasting success with Poland, his recent visit showcases something else – that the balancing games of old may well be returning, ushered in by swaying US leadership (or perception thereof), the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the EU, all underscoring time-invariant divergence in German and French imperatives. The fact that it is Macron of all people that visits Warsaw, and in the process discards every single piece of narrative he weaved for the past three years of his presidency while offering a “new opening” to a country he consistently portrayed as an antithesis to his vision of Europe, goes to show how the impersonal forces of geopolitics guide the hand of world leaders – and not the other way around.
Autor
Albert Świdziński
Director of Analysis at Strategy&Future.
Strategy&Future
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