It feels like 1939, says Poland’s prime minister
Europe is in a “pre-war” period reminiscent of the situation in 1939, Poland’s prime minister has said, in a bleak comparison with his own family’s experience of the Nazi German invasion.
Donald Tusk, whose grandfather was forced to work in a concentration camp and then conscripted into the Wehrmacht, said his European partners had “a long way to go” before they would be ready to resist a direct Russian offensive.
“I remember a photo from my childhood that hung in my family’s house,” Tusk told Welt am Sonntag, a German newspaper. “It showed Sopot beach [near Gdansk on the Baltic coast] full of laughing people.
“It was taken on August 31, 1939. A few hours later the Second World War began 5km away. I know it sounds devastating, especially for the younger generation, but we have to get used to the fact that a new era has begun: the pre-war period. I’m not exaggerating: it gets clearer every day.”
Asked about an incident earlier this week where a Russian missile crossed over Polish airspace for half a minute, Tusk recalled an exchange with his Spanish counterpart, Pedro Sánchez.
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“He demanded that the [European Council] no longer use the word ‘war’,” Tusk said. “He didn’t want to unsettle people. Apparently the word sounds abstract in Spain.
“I told him that war is no longer abstract in my part of Europe — and we have a duty not to hold discussions but to get ourselves ready for defence.”
Meanwhile, on Friday morning, Poland scrambled fighter jets over its airspace following a series of Russian missile strikes on Ukraine. The Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces said “allied” aircraft joined the response — although it is not clear which countries assisted.
Poland, which is aiming to amass the largest army and the biggest fleet of tanks in mainland Europe, is expected to spend about 4 per cent of its GDP on the military this year, twice the basic target for Nato members.
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“We need to be ready,” Tusk said. “Europe still has a long way to go. Luckily we can already see a real revolution in the European mentality … The most important thing is that no one questions that the need for collective defence any more. Look at Germany: a massive turnaround has taken place there.”
With an election looming in America, the leader of one of the EU’s largest parliamentary groups Manfred Weber has already warned that Europe needs to prepare for a scenario where the US no longer defends the continent. Earlier this year, Donald Trump suggested he may not protect Nato allies against a foreign invasion, while President Joe Biden has failed to pass a vital aid package for Ukraine through Congress.
This prompted the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to admit on Friday his army may be forced to retreat “in small steps” in the face of Russian attacks this spring. “If there is no US support,” he told the Washington Post, “it means that we have no air defence, no Patriot missiles, no jammers for electronic warfare, no 155-millimetre artillery rounds. It means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.”
Meanwhile in Latvia, one of Poland’s closest allies, the foreign minister has been forced to resign after prosecutors opened criminal proceedings following claims that his office had wasted public money on private jets.
Krisjanis Karins, who had been a candidate to take over the leadership of Nato, took flights costing a total of €1.3 million for 36 overseas trips on official business while he was the Baltic state’s prime minister, from 2019 to 2023.
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The European Union contributed €700,000 and the remaining €600,000 came from the Latvian taxpayer. Some of the trips were on chartered jets, prompting allegations that Karins had made unnecessary foreign visits and been too cavalier with scarce public funds.
Karins responded that given his full diary it would have been impossible to make these journeys on commercial flights. Last week, however, the Latvian prosecutor general’s office said it had identified a series of irregularities.
It said the chancellery officials under Karins had failed to carry out a proper procurement process and handed travel agencies more money than had been contractually agreed.
The file was handed to the national anti-corruption bureau, although there has been no claim that Karins was himself responsible for the improprieties, nor any indication that he will face charges.
Karins announced his resignation in a brief statement with no further explanation. Evika Silina, his successor as prime minister, praised his record but said Latvia could not afford to have any “shadow of a doubt” hanging over its top diplomat.
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Latvia has consistently been a strong advocate of support for Ukraine and the need for higher European defence spending. Earlier this month Karins told The Times that Europe had collectively been too fearful of Russian escalation and needed to equip Kyiv for victory.
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