Before the European summit, Warsaw and Chisinau began joint exercises in Moldova. In particular, the Polish military personnel will be engaged in air patrolling of the Dniester Delta. Recently, there has been an increasing strengthening of Poland’s dominance in Eastern Europe. Some experts believe that the Polish elite not only won the fight for the status of a new center of power, but also formulated a new big project – such as the Intermarium. Details – in the material “Izvestia”.
At the initiative of Macron
“The exercises of the Fulger National Police Brigade and the Polish Police Rapid Response Unit are being held to exchange experience and best practices in the field of security in the context of the European Political Community summit, which will be held in the Republic of Moldova on June 1,” reads a message on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic.
The forum will be held in the village of Bulboaca on the territory of the Mimi wine complex. According to the head of state Maia Sandu, about 50 representatives of the EU countries and European structures are expected.
Photo: a-tv.md
The European Political Community was created by Brussels at the initiative of the French leader Emmanuel Macron, the first summit was held in the fall of 2022. This platform is organized for the political coordination of the actions of European states throughout the continent and a closer dialogue outside the European Union, in particular with Kiev and Chisinau.
The struggle for leadership in the EU
Recently, Warsaw has been actively fighting with Paris and Berlin for leadership in the European Union. Since February 2022, Poland has noticeably increased its political weight. The country’s leadership has repeatedly expressed claims to Brussels, and also urged the EU to strengthen anti-Russian restrictive measures. “We need further and tougher sanctions,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Marcin Przydacz.
In Warsaw, European partners are constantly and quite sharply criticized for insufficient assistance to Ukraine and inactivity. For example, Deputy Foreign Minister of Poland Szymon Shinkowski stated: “Germany [в вопросе Украины] makes a lot of promises but doesn’t follow through with action. And, of course, this position of Berlin does not fully strengthen our confidence and affects relations not only with us, but also with other countries.”
At the same time, full mutual understanding reigns in relations with the United States.
“The Franco-German axis, the usual engine of European integration, seems to have run out of steam, and NATO has begun to look to the east,” — wrote about this The Times. In particular, the author of the article expressed the opinion that Poland is “the real leader of Europe”, which seeks to “create the largest army on the continent”.
“Poland has taken on the burden of leadership. Germany has never ruled it out. Scholz’s line was only to “not run ahead of the locomotive.” So we can say that Poland has done Germany a favor,” said Piotr Buras, senior fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
In his opinion, Warsaw made a tactical mistake – it promised to export its Leopards without waiting for Germany’s permission. “This became a threat to Berlin and demonstrated Poland’s willingness to violate contracts and start arbitrarily,” the political scientist believes.
According to the publication, in recent years Poland has significantly increased its military power: Warsaw has 647 main battle tanks – almost three times more than the UK. Warsaw has already ordered 250 new Abrams (plus another batch of 116) from the United States and a thousand K2 tanks from South Korea, of which 180 have already been built. Some of these tanks will arrive at the end of 2024.
According to Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, Poland also plans to order more than 600 K9 howitzers from Seoul, as well as three squadrons of FA-50 aircraft.
“Among European NATO countries, we will have the strongest ground forces. The Polish army must be so powerful and numerous in order to scare off the aggressor in advance, ”said the head of the Ministry of Defense.
As The Times wrote about this, if the modernization of the army is fully completed, then in a couple of years “Poland can become the largest military force in Europe.”
Greater Poland from the Black Sea to the Baltic
Some experts call such a strengthening of the country a modernized version of the Intermarium project, which was voiced over a hundred years ago by the Polish leader Jozef Pilsudski. He dreamed of uniting the Eastern European states under the leadership of Poland. According to his plan, such a confederation should have stretched from the Black and Adriatic Seas to the Baltic and should have prevented the dominance of Germany or Russia.
Professor of the Institute of Media of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, candidate of political sciences Dmitry Evstafiev in his article for RT wrotethat a new stage is currently taking place in the military-political development by Poland of the most important space in the Northern Black Sea region, where previously only the Americans were present of all external forces. We are talking about the strike units of the 101st Airborne Division of the US Army.
According to him, the Polish elite “shows growing determination.” “We venture to suggest that Poland has practically won the fight for the status of not just the main ally of the United States (and, note, Great Britain) in Europe, but also the center of a new military-political coalition capable of replacing NATO in the future,” the publication says.
According to the political scientist, the Polish authorities for the first time in two centuries have formulated a “big project” that fits into the realities of modern Europe.
The Intermarium is a project that, in its geopolitical and geo-economic scope, goes far beyond the classical “Polish geopolitics” (…) But Poland “from may to may” is more than real at the moment. And this construction, although unstable and torn apart by internal squabbles, will create long-term risks for the Russian Federation even after the completion of the NWO, especially if significant regions of Ukraine are under the control of Warsaw, ”he explained.
Without aircraft carriers, but with ambition
Dmitry Ofitserov-Belsky agrees with Evstafiev’s point of view. He noted that Poland, by and large, is already a European power. It should not be considered a state on the outskirts of Europe. In the EU, no one perceives it that way anymore. Only in Russia the habit has remained of considering it one of the socialist countries, one of the former satellites of Moscow, which has now become a satellite of other countries. However, this perception is erroneous.
– A thematic magazine was published in Italy, in which one of the articles was called “Imperial Poland”. This may be a bit of an exaggeration, but in general it is.the political scientist noted.
According to him, the comparison with the Intermarium project is not surprising. Russia has a characteristic feature of looking for some reminiscences of the past in Polish foreign policy.
– If we are talking about attempts to spread influence on neighboring countries, then we immediately recall the Commonwealth. The Poles, by the way, also sometimes do it. Recently, an article was published in a leading Polish newspaper, in which the author says that only by uniting with Ukraine in a kind of formation similar to the Commonwealth, Poland can be a full-fledged rival of Russia, the expert explained.
The Polonist allowed comparisons with the Intermarium project in his public speech, but at the same time he urged “not to get carried away by drawing parallels”, since they and the current Polish concepts have a completely different nature.
– Now there are no those realities that were at the end of the First World War, when the limitrophe countries were actually sandwiched between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Poles have a completely trivial idea of regional dominance through positioning themselves as a European power, a European partner of the United States in the EU, a partner who will organize regional processes, Officerov-Belsky explained.
He added that if we compare the difference in military potential between France and Poland, it is colossal. Poland has neither its military-industrial complex, nor nuclear weapons, nor the ability to maintain, for example, aircraft carriers.
— But the Poles nevertheless have ambitions. The French have the aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle, and the Poles have ambitions. At the same time, the planned 4% of GDP for defense spending is a fairly large figure. Everything is serious with the Poles: a nation of 40 million that is going to arm itself. If they do not reach a truly serious military level, then at least they will make a lot of progress in this.– the political scientist is sure.
He also added that the Poles began to show activity not right now. During the occupation of Iraq by America and its allies, the Polish contingent was the third largest and largest after the American and British.
— The Poles have always been serious about their military training. For them, it was an opportunity to work out the coherence of actions with the Anglo-Saxon partners,” the expert summed up.
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