Wykład ministra Adama Daniela Rotfelda podczas inauguracji II edycji Studium Polityki Zagranicznej

Poland’s has to improve relations with Russia and Germany as well as France but the country’s standing in the European Union is high, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, the outgoing Foreign Minister said in a speech inaugurating the academic year at the Foreign Policy Study Course at the Polish Institute of Foreign Affairs (PISM).

Professor Rotfeld, who after his spell at Foreign Minister returned to the staff of PISM on November 1 2005, said that Poles were unaware of their country’s high standing in the EU. He identified Polish Prime Minister Marek Belka’s offer to take a cut in budget allocations at the June 2005 summit and thus salvage the financial negotiations as a turning point.

Rotefld said “On the night of June 17/18 we met to be informed that agreement had not been reached. And then Premier Belka simply asked his colleagues why ? Is it just about money ? How much, he said  If it is really true, Belka continued, that the sum at stake is 1.5 bn euro then we will give up 500m euro.” Rotfeld recalls that the other new member states matched the offer to limit their budget allocation if that would save the agreement. Rotfeld quoted Javier Solana as saying “ that was the moment when Poland reached the top drawer in EU terms”. “The Polish delegation demonstrated a sense of responsibility, a readiness to make sacrifices and at the same time became one of the leaders  members of  the EU pushing the Union in the right direction” Solana later told Rotfeld.

Next Rotfeld looked at Poland’s relations with leading world players. The United States, he says, is keen to support European integration but wants the EU to recognise the US’s leadership role. However the US sees the EU as an economic rival. Russia on the other hand views the EU not as a separate entitity but as a collection of small, large and medium sized states. Thus Russia does not recognise the EU as a whole but will talk to larger states like Germany, France, Italy, the United Kingdom and Spain. It dismisses the smaller states as of no importance. Small states which accept Russia’s dominant role are rewarded, Rotfeld said, small states which don’t, are punished. Poland has found itself in the second category.

Poland’s relations with Germany have suffered as Germany has sought to redefine its national interest and highlight the suffering of the German people during the last war. “Germany’s new formula which says that the Nazis committed atrocities towards the Jews and that the second group of victims were the Germans is unacceptable to Poland and to many other countries” Rotfeld said.

In relations with France, Poland was faced with a choice, either you support the US or France, Rotfeld said. “We don’t see relations with those two countries in either or terms”.

The former Polish Foreign Minister concluded by saying that in the EU Poland would have to come to terms with a Europe of mixed speeds. Already we have the euro and Schengen, he said. The question Poland faces is adopting priorities and then acting accordingly.