Poles Can’t Live With Germans, Can’t Live Without Them
Warsaw’s demands for war reparations are a reminder of what ails the European Union.
Not quite the European spirit.
Photographer: Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Poland will demand reparations for World War II from Germany, the ruling party in Warsaw announced the other day. A parliamentary commission has pegged the amount at 1.3 trillion euros, which is about the same in dollars and equivalent to between two and three annual budgets of the German federal government. Oh dear.
As eager as postwar Germany has been to atone for its Nazi past, there’s no chance that Berlin will pay any of this sum, as the Poles are well aware. But that’s not what this is about. Instead, the gesture by Poland’s hard-right Law and Justice party (PiS) speaks volumes about other afflictions ailing the European Union.