Polish President Karol Nawrocki will raise the issue of World War II reparations that Poland wants to receive from Germany during his meeting with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin next week. This was stated by Nawrocki's spokesman to the Polish news agency PAP, BTA reports.
In an interview with PAP, Rafal Leszkiewicz stressed that the president will certainly talk about this issue because “he cares about the interests of Poland and Poles“. He also repeated the right-wing president's accusation that the current centrist government has abandoned reparations.
Donald Tusk's government accused the former Law and Justice (PiS) cabinet, a party to which Nawrocki is affiliated, of politicizing the issue. According to him, the amount of 1.3 trillion US dollars demanded by Germany during the PiS era is completely unrealistic.
“The president will speak out openly in the arena of international politics and declare that Germany owes Poland compensation for war losses in the amount of over 6 trillion zlotys“, Leszkiewicz added.
The demands for reparations were first announced in 2022. Since then, the value of the dollar against the Polish zloty has fallen, making the total amount even larger and exceeding 1.6 trillion US dollars.
Tusk and his ministers recognize that Germany has a moral obligation to Poland, but do not support the demands for the amount set by PiS.
The German government considers the issue closed, referring to the 1953 declaration with which Poland officially renounced reparations under pressure from the then Soviet Union.