On Tuesday, Nawrocki met German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, before travelling to Paris for talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The discussions in Berlin centred on regional security and on reparations for Poland, whose government argues that German compensation for wartime destruction remains incomplete.
President launches WWII reparations task force amid diplomatic doubts
Nawrocki later told reporters that a special working group would be set up to explore the issue.
He stressed that “the matter of war reparations has not been legally settled” and suggested that payments could take the form of German investment in NATO’s eastern flank.
But veteran diplomats have cast doubt on the approach.
Czaputowicz warns against unrealistic German reparations claims
Jacek Czaputowicz, who served as Poland’s foreign minister between 2018 and 2020, told Polish Radio that Nawrocki “will certainly not secure reparations from Germany.”
“I believe this is not a good decision,” he said.
“Poland is framing the issue poorly. To present it in this way is not only unfair, but also contrary to Poland’s national interest. The president is pushing ahead, but we should demand reparations differently.”
Czaputowicz noted that the post-war international order had already set limits.
“In Potsdam, the Allies – the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union – agreed that Germany’s damages were so vast they could never be fully repaid. Reparations were capped at $20 billion at the time, of which half went to the Soviet Union and Poland, the rest to 18 Western states. That is the framework we should operate within – and Germany has shown understanding when the issue was raised this way.”
‘Foreign policy is harder than it looks,’ Sikorski says after Nawrocki’s foreign visits
Radosław Sikorski, Poland’s current foreign minister and deputy prime minister, was even more blunt. Writing on social media, he accused Nawrocki of “pursuing domestic PR at the expense of foreign policy.”
With his trademark irony, Poland’s top diplomat added that in Berlin the president had won “a moral victory” on reparations – a thinly veiled swipe at the lack of tangible progress. He was also sceptical of Nawrocki’s push in Paris to block the EU-Mercosur trade deal.
“We warned during the Cabinet Council that there was no chance of securing a blocking minority,” Sikorski said, concluding: “Foreign policy is harder than it looks.”
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Source: PR3/PAP/X/@sikorskiradek/@RadiowaTrojka