German Pressure Upon Poland to Adopt the Euro Is Berlin’s Latest Hegemonic Power Play
The emerging trend is that the Polish-Prussian alliance is giving way to a Polish-German rivalry, albeit one that Warsaw won’t be able to beat Berlin in. This aspiring regional leader went all-in by doing too much for Ukraine too fast, and now it’s unable to reverse course, thus fating it to continue doing Germany’s bidding in that country.
Polish grey cardinal Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who resigned from his post as Deputy Prime Minister for health reasons late last month, claimed that adopting the euro would “kill” his country’s prospects of surviving the present economic crisis. He also added that only Germany and the cluster of countries along its western and southern periphery benefit from that currency while others like Lithuania are experiencing runaway inflation. This follows its central bank governor accusing Germany earlier this month of pressuring Poland to ditch its national currency in favor of the euro. Quite clearly, the Polish-Prussian alliance that former Russian President and incumbent Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev opined about in late May is coming apart as a result of Berlin’s latest hegemonic power play.
The EU’s de facto leader has been playing Poland by manipulating it into doing Berlin’s bidding in Ukraine, after which Warsaw seems to have wised up and realized that it’s being left in the lurch there by having to pick up the tab for the de facto confederation that it recently created with that former Soviet Republic. Kaczynski also speculated in early June that Germany’s stated ambition to assemble the EU’s largest army might actually be aimed against Poland, which could be interpreted at hinting that Berlin might one day try to forcefully reclaim the former parts of Prussia that were given to Poland after World War II and upon which Warsaw has historical claims going back approximately a millennium. That far-fetched scenario aside, the point is that Poland is beginning to feel uncomfortable with Germany.
Truth be told, the ruling “Law & Justice” (PiS per its Polish abbreviation) party has always had such a stance towards its western neighbor, but never had it been played by Berlin as much as over the past five months. Not only is Germany openly striving to become the most militarily powerful country in the EU, but it’s also pressuring Poland to commit economic suicide by adopting the euro as soon as possible. The first development is manageable from a Polish perspective since it concerns a far-fetched scenario, while the second is much more unpredictable since Poland is very economically dependent on Germany, which also operates a vast and deeply embedded influence network within the country through the “Civic Platform” (PO per its Polish abbreviation) opposition party and allied media.
The emerging trend is that the Polish-Prussian alliance is giving way to a Polish-German rivalry, albeit one that Warsaw won’t be able to beat Berlin in. This aspiring regional leader went all-in by doing too much for Ukraine too fast, and now it’s unable to reverse course, thus fating it to continue doing Germany’s bidding in that country. Poland might not be invaded by Germany ever again nor be successfully pressured to adopt the euro anytime soon and thus commit economic suicide, but the writing’s on the wall that it’ll never reach strategic parity with its western neighbor. To the contrary, despite being under the illusion that all of its relevant moves were independently decided and subsequently bolstered its strategic autonomy, all they did was make Poland Germany’s “useful idiot”.
