After the visit of the Russian minister

Marian Miszalski

The Russian politics, as all things indicate, has achieved its aim in Georgia: there will be no transit of oil and gas to Europe, which Russia will not control. Abkhasia and South Ossetia will remain the satellite Moscow enclaves and Georgia, with its territory cut down, will rather share the future fate of Ukraine, which one can predict, Ukraine that is being drawn again into the Russian zone of influence. Undoubtedly, just after Georgia had been quartered Yulia Tymoshenko changed the political alliances in Ukraine and coupled her party with the party of the pro-Kremlin post-communists, which tells us that in spite of the ‘Western help’ a similar scenario is possible in Georgia, especially when the Russian spy network begins to ‘settle accounts’ with President Saakashvili concerning his achievements. In this situation – when the European Union under the French presidency recognised the legitimacy of the Russian intervention, questioning only ‘the abuse of means’ – the outcome of the presidential election in America can decide about the fate of Georgia. The victory of McCain will face him with the problem: will opposing the terrorists’ attacks against America require an indispensable collaboration with Russia or is the collaboration with Russia not needed after America has taken security measures taken after the attack on the World Trade Center? But we will have the answer to this question, on which the fate of Georgia might depend, at the earliest towards the end of the year. In the meantime, just after the attack against Georgia, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs paid an unexpected visit to Poland. Lavrov’s visit seems to have three aims: firstly, to calm the public opinion in the EU countries (‘Nothing wrong has happened, even Poland talks to us in a peaceful way’); secondly, to make the Polish authorities realise that Russia is going to guard its zone of influence to the east of the old Curzon line with all firmness; thirdly, to show that the political axis Berlin – Moscow is stronger, more unshakeable than the ‘Brussels unity’ (which the summit in Brussels fully verified as negative…). The question: whose zone of influence is the area to the west of the old Curzon line to remain? becomes more and more a rhetorical question; the quickest answer was given by the Lithuanian president who recognised that ‘Germany has the right to care for its interests by building the Baltic oil pipeline’, which, as we know, omits Poland. Will this concern for ‘German interests’ include a change of the relationships of ownership in the territory of the Polish Western Lands (the demands of the Prussian Trusteeship and its claims against Poland, received in the European Tribunal)? The Lithuanian President did not say that but one can fear that the Lithuanian-German friendship (like the Latvian-German or Estonian-German) will turn out to be stronger than the Lithuanian-Polish friendship… As history teaches Germany pushed to the East taking two parallel routes: over the Baltic and over the Danube, the Balkan route. Then if it is true that after the unification of Germany the European politics returns into the pre-war ruts the geopolitical directions of the political German offensive will be revived. Even the present-day axis Berlin-Moscow – the strategic partnership is more important than the ‘Brussels unity’ – is not anything new: we remember Rapallo. Perhaps the only serious change as compared to the pre-war situation is that with the existence of nuclear weapon (at Russia’s disposal whereas Germany has none) the division of the zones of influence in Central-Eastern Europe will not carry any embers of a world conflict. But it carries the danger that Poland, being pushed into the orbit of the German politics, will pay for this equally dubious and forced ‘patronage’ not only by a new dependency but more concretely: tribute in the form of the change of the relationships of ownership in the Western Lands (an introduction to a ‘Balkanisation’ of Poland?) and in the form of other ‘retribution’ payments to the occasional usurpers in America from ‘the company of Holocaust’. In the meantime, the public debt amounts to 600 billion zloty. Its administration becomes more expensive. Therefore, instead of decreased taxes, the standard election motto of the Citizen’s Platform, we may expect rather new forms of drainage of our pockets, increased prices and inflation. The government of Tusk wastes precious time not only in foreign politics but also in home politics.

"Niedziela" 39/2008

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl