Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the country’s governing ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), has accused Germany of trying to create a “Fourth Reich” by pushing for a European Union federal state.
Mr Kaczyński made his comments this week during an interview with Polish media, explaining that the term “Fourth Reich” was not so much a reference to the Third Reich of National Socialist Germany as to the “First Reich” of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Polish conservative added that if his fellow countrymen were to agree to further federalisation of the European Union “we would be degraded in various ways” and said that such a change to the EU would amount to a “modern subjugation” of the Polish people, Kronen Zeitung reports.
The comments come after the new German left-green-liberal coalition government agreed to push for further federalisation of the European Union as part of the “traffic light coalition” deal that was agreed upon earlier this month.
Soldiers of the German guard battalion hold torches at the Defence Ministry during the Grand Tattoo (Grosser Zapfenstreich), a ceremonial send-off for outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel (in the background) in Berlin on December 2, 2021. (Photo by STEFANIE LOOS/AFP via Getty Images)
Last week, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz made his first visit to Poland to meet with Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, with the latter noting his opposition to a centralised EU superstate and saying such a move would be “bureaucratic centralism” and adding that “Europe will be strong if it is a Europe of sovereign states.”
Scholz did, however, express support for Poland’s ongoing migrant crisis engineered by Belarus, with Scholz agreeing that it was a form of “hybrid warfare” during his visit.
“I described to the Chancellor the changed tactics that the [Alexander] Lukashenko regime is now using in this artificially triggered migration crisis, the use of people as living shields, as weapons,” Prime Minister Morawiecki said.
Both countries are still at odds on the issue of judicial reform, with the European Union launching legal action earlier this week against Poland after the country’s constitutional court ruled that the Polish constitution has supremacy over European law in some circumstances.