Re: Blues for Europa
Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2024 3:44 pm
Germany Would Be Pleased If The Polish-Korean Arms Deal Falls Apart
ANDREW KORYBKO
FEB 12, 2024
Germany wants to greatly reduce Poland’s competitive potential and therefore preempt any possible return of its Great Power plans at a future date.
Last year’s $22 billion Polish-Korean arms deal is in jeopardy due to the first’s new liberal-globalist government having doubts about some of the financing terms that its conservative-nationalist predecessor agreed to and the second having reached the legal limit for loans. Prior to this, Poland was poised to beat Germany in their competition to build Europe’s largest army and accordingly expand its envisaged regional “sphere of influence”, but that might no longer happen if the deal falls through.
While South Korean lawmakers could amend legislation to increase the borrowing cap and/or find local banks who’d be interested in helping out, all that could be for naught if Poland gets cold feet and decides to either cancel some contracts or demand unrealistic revisions so as to ruin the deal. The new Sejm speaker declared shortly after taking power that “Agreements signed by the interim PiS government may be invalidated”, while the new Defense Minister recently called the original terms “unacceptable”.
The larger context within which this uncertainty is emerging concerns Poland’s subordination to German hegemony under the return of Prime Minister Donald Tusk after a nine-year hiatus, who was accused by opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski of being that country’s agent. In particular, it agreed last month to partially implement the “military Schengen” with Germany and the Netherlands, which will lead to German troops freely transiting to and from Poland for the first time since World War II.
The end effect is that Germany has been able to make tangible progress on its grand strategic plan to rebuild “Fortress Europe” and thus beat Poland in those two’s competition to become the US’ top partner for containing Russia in Central & Eastern Europe. Accordingly, with Germany informally assuming partial responsibility for Poland’s security and in a much better economic-financial position to fund its goal of building Europe’s largest army, there’s a certain logic to Poland bowing out of this race.
The argument can be made that Germany might feel more comfortable with a largely weakened and militarily neutered Poland than a strong one that could potentially revert back to conservative-nationalism at a future time and then resume their competition. On the other hand, however, maintaining some (key qualifier) of the prior government’s rearmament and modernization programs could enable Poland to relieve some the burden upon Germany for its envisaged continental hegemony.
The common denominator between both scenarios is that Germany wants to greatly reduce Poland’s competitive potential and therefore preempt any possible return of its Great Power plans at a future date, ergo why it’s pleased to hear that the Polish-Korean arms deal might fall apart. The latest signal coming from its allied government in Warsaw indicates that the whole thing might not go through even if more funding is secured from Seoul’s side so Berlin’s goal might soon be attained at least in part.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/germany- ... the-polish
******
Hungary: President Resigns Following Child Abuse Pardon Scandal
Former Hungarian President Katalin Novak. | Photo: X/ @DK71834510
Published 12 February 2024
"There shall be no mercy for paedophiles," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week.
On Saturday, Hungarian President Katalin Novak resigned from office, following a child abuse pardon scandal.
"I am addressing you as President for the last time, I resign from the position of President of the Republic. I apologize to those I have offended and to all the victims who might have felt I did not stand by them. I have been, am, and will be in support of protecting children and families," she said on national television channel M1.
Novak pardoned Endre K., former deputy director of a children's home, in April 2023. The pardon led to protests on Friday in Budapest demanding her resignation.
Shortly following Novak's resignation, Hungary's former Justice Minister Judit Varga also resigned from public office.
The text reads, "Scandal in Hungary. Hungarian President Katalin Novak announces her resignation after it came to light that she granted a pardon to the deputy director of an orphanage who tried to hide cases of pedophilia, of up to ten minors, committed by the director of the center."
"I take political responsibility for countersigning the President's decision. I am withdrawing from public life, resigning my parliamentary mandate, and stepping down as the head of the list for the European Parliament," said Varga, who was minister of justice when Novak signed the controversial pardon.
"Katalin Novak and Judit Varga have made a responsible decision, which we respect," said Mate Kocsis, head of the parliamentary group of the ruling Fidesz party.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban submitted a constitutional amendment on behalf of the government to prevent a pardon from being granted to perpetrators of crimes committed against minors. "There shall be no mercy for paedophiles," Orban said.
Elected to office by the Hungarian parliament in 2022, Novak has been the country's first female president and also the youngest ever to hold the mostly ceremonial position.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hun ... -0003.html
******
EU’s Borrell: Cut Off Arms to Israel
February 12, 2024
On Monday, the EU’s top foreign policy official rebuked the U.S. president and other world leaders for decrying the loss of life in Gaza while also sending weapons to the Netanyahu government.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell in 2022. (European Parliament, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
The European Union’s top foreign policy official said Monday that the Biden administration and other governments professing concern about the grisly death toll in the Gaza Strip should stop supplying so much weaponry to the Israeli military as it carries out one of the most devastating bombing campaigns in modern history.
Pointing to U.S. President Joe Biden’s statement late last week that Israel’s war on Gaza has been “over the top,” E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said during a press conference in Brussels, “Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed.”
Borrell then extended that suggestion to the rest of the international community, saying if governments believe that “this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe they have to think about the provision of arms.”
“Everybody goes to Tel Aviv, begging, ‘Please don’t do that, protect civilians, don’t kill so many.’ How many is too many?” Borrell asked. “It is a little bit contradictory to continue saying that there are ‘too many people being killed, too many people being killed, please take care of people, please don’t kill so many.’ Stop saying please and [do] something.”
Shortly following Borrell’s remarks, veteran Associated Press reporter Matt Lee grilled U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on what leverage the Biden administration has used thus far to pressure the Israeli government to protect civilians in Gaza.
Lee challenged Miller by saying that top U.S. officials, including Biden, standing up and “wagging [their] finger” at Israel was “not really leverage.”
Miller responded by citing “the words of the president of the United States” and other diplomatic engagement—a reply that exemplified the approach Borrell urged nations to abandon.
The U.S. is by far the largest supplier of arms to Israel, but other countries — including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands — have provided the country with weapons and other military equipment deployed during its ongoing assault on Gaza.
On Monday, a Netherlands court ordered the Dutch government to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing the “clear risk” that the warplanes “might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.” The government said it would appeal the ruling to the nation’s Supreme Court.
Borrell’s call for restrictions on weapons transfers to Israel came weeks after a coalition of leading humanitarian organizations urged all countries to impose an arms embargo on Israel and Palestinian militants, declaring that “all states have the obligation to prevent atrocity crimes and promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”
The U.S. Senate over the weekend advanced legislation that would provide Israel with over $10 billion in military assistance on top of what the Biden administration has already provided since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was the lone member of the upper chamber’s Democratic caucus to vote against advancing the bill.
In the E.U., the foreign ministers of 16 countries received a letter from human rights groups on Monday urging them to do everything in their power to ensure Israel complies with the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) interim order, which requires Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
“Furthermore,” the letter reads,
“the E.U. and its member states must call for a cease-fire to ensure that no genocidal acts might be committed by the state of Israel and ensure that they do not cooperate on potential genocidal acts by suspending arms trade with Israel.”
Pressure on governments to stop providing arms to the Israeli military is growing as the Netanyahu government prepares for an invasion of Rafah, a small Gaza city to which more than a million displaced Palestinians fled in an attempt to find refuge from incessant Israeli airstrikes.
During Monday’s press conference in Brussels, Borrell criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to forcibly “evacuate” Rafah’s civilian population.
“They are going to evacuate. Where, to the moon?” he asked. “Where are they going to evacuate these people?”
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/12/e ... to-israel/
Talk is cheap, don't hold your breath for action.
..
******
Poland’s Economic Subordination To Germany Follows Its Political & Military Subordination
ANDREW KORYBKO
FEB 13, 2024
What’s taking place is Donald Tusk’s systematic subordination of Poland to German hegemony as a quid pro quo for its support of his return to power.
Polish conservative-nationalist opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s prior assessment of returning Prime Minister Donald Tusk being a German agent continues to be extended credence as the latter’s government makes move after move in support of this thesis. Last month, it shied away from pressing for its predecessor’s $1.3 trillion World War II reparations demand in favor of “creative compensation”, which returning Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later said could simply be a “dialogue center” instead.
Around the same time, Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz signed a deal in Brussels for partially implementing the “military Schengen” proposal from last November with Germany and the Netherlands. This agreement will enable the free transit of German troop and equipment to and from Poland en route to Berlin’s new tank base in Lithuania, which is the first time since World War II that it’ll have such military rights and is thus understandably opposed by patriotic Poles.
These moves respectively represented Poland’s political and military subordination to Germany, which is now being complemented by an economic component after Tusk’s government – that some describe as a regime due to its totalitarian crackdown on the opposition – decided to reconsider a megaproject. The Central Communication Part, known by its Polish abbreviation as the CPK, is now being audited and the future of this interconnected air-rail hub in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) is accordingly in doubt.
The CPK is one of six megaprojects that the former conservative-nationalist authorities prioritized as part of their plans to have Poland become the CEE’s leader and then establish a “sphere of influence” across this half of Europe for balancing Germany hegemony over the continent. That grand strategic goal is now in shambles after Tusk politically subordinated Poland to Germany by tacitly rescinding reparations demands, militarily via the “military Schengen”, and now economically by reconsidering the CPK.
Coupled with the newfound uncertainty over Poland’s $22 billion arms deal with South Korea last year, any drastic downscaling of the CPK alongside fundamental changes to the country’s military modernization program could deal an irreparable blow to its prior leadership ambitions. Taken together, all these moves in recent months work against Poland’s objective national interests and benefit Berlin, thus extending maximum credence to Kaczynski’s speculation about Tusk being a German agent.
Tacitly rescinding reparations demands is a symbolic sign of fealty to his patrons, while his government’s decision to go along with “military Schengen” and reconsider large parts of last year’s massive arms deal with South Korea weaken its armed forces and create the conditions for dependence on Germany’s. Tusk’s second thoughts about the CPK are the icing on the cake since they’ll kill Poland’s future economic competitiveness and therefore maintain Germany’s flagging one amidst that country’s ongoing struggles.
What’s taking place is Tusk’s systematic subordination of Poland to German hegemony as a quid pro quo for its support of his return to power. Germany correctly assessed that Poland is the greatest obstacle to its envisaged “Fortress Europe”, which refers to its grand strategic goal of peacefully capturing control of the bloc. In response, it sought to dismantle Poland’s competitiveness by installing its loyal proxy who’ll obediently do its bidding to that end, which Tusk is systematically doing as explained in this analysis.
The way in which he’s carrying out his task confirms the prescience of Kaczynski’s warning that “A specific plan is already being prepared, the implementation of which would lead not only to the deprivation of our independence and sovereignty, but even to the annihilation of the Polish state. We would become an area inhabited by Poles, ruled from the outside.” After Poland just politically, militarily, and economically subordinated itself to Berlin, it’s now just a Polish-inhabited polity ruled by Germany.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/polands- ... ination-to
******
Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Estonian PM Kaja Kallas
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. | Photo: X/ @kajakallas
Published 13 February 2024 (59 minutes ago)
Russia initiated 16 criminal cases for the destruction, damage, and desecration of Soviet soldiers' monuments and graves in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
The Russian Interior Ministry issued a warrant for the arrest of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other senior officials and deputies from Latvia and Lithuania.
The reason for the warrant is the destruction or damage caused to monuments of Soviet soldiers in the Baltic country. In this regard, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the Baltic countries of "hostile actions against Russia's historical memory."
In Kallas's case, the arrest warrant is based on the removal in August 2022 of the Soviet T-34 tank and other monuments in the city of Narva. Later that year, the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered an investigation into the matter.
During meetings of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), PM Kallas has repeatedly spoken in favor of supplying arms to Ukraine and tightening sanctions against Russia.
In January 2021, she became the first woman to lead the government of the Baltic country, a position she retained after her party won the legislative elections held in March 2023.
Russia also issued arrest warrants against Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop and Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys.
The list of arrest warrants also includes 59 out of 68 members of the Latvian Parliament for voting in favor of denouncing the treaty with Russia for the preservation of monuments.
Due to the dismantling of a Soviet monument in Riga, 15 municipal deputies from the Latvian capital were also included in the list, as were former ministers of Interior, Finance, Justice, and Agriculture.
In the case of Lithuania, a similar incident in the capital, Vilnius, led to warrants being issued for Kairys and six other municipal deputies. The same occurred in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, after which the mayor of the city and 24 officials and historians were included in the Russian Interior Ministry's list.
Arrest warrants also cover several Polish officials such as Walbrzych Mayor Roman Szelemej, and the Institute of National Remembrance president Karol Nawrocki.
"For crimes against the memory of those who liberated the world from Nazism and fascism, one must be held accountable! This is just the beginning!" commented Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
So far, Russia has initiated 16 criminal cases for the destruction, damage, and desecration of Soviet soldiers' monuments and graves in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0006.html
ANDREW KORYBKO
FEB 12, 2024
Germany wants to greatly reduce Poland’s competitive potential and therefore preempt any possible return of its Great Power plans at a future date.
Last year’s $22 billion Polish-Korean arms deal is in jeopardy due to the first’s new liberal-globalist government having doubts about some of the financing terms that its conservative-nationalist predecessor agreed to and the second having reached the legal limit for loans. Prior to this, Poland was poised to beat Germany in their competition to build Europe’s largest army and accordingly expand its envisaged regional “sphere of influence”, but that might no longer happen if the deal falls through.
While South Korean lawmakers could amend legislation to increase the borrowing cap and/or find local banks who’d be interested in helping out, all that could be for naught if Poland gets cold feet and decides to either cancel some contracts or demand unrealistic revisions so as to ruin the deal. The new Sejm speaker declared shortly after taking power that “Agreements signed by the interim PiS government may be invalidated”, while the new Defense Minister recently called the original terms “unacceptable”.
The larger context within which this uncertainty is emerging concerns Poland’s subordination to German hegemony under the return of Prime Minister Donald Tusk after a nine-year hiatus, who was accused by opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski of being that country’s agent. In particular, it agreed last month to partially implement the “military Schengen” with Germany and the Netherlands, which will lead to German troops freely transiting to and from Poland for the first time since World War II.
The end effect is that Germany has been able to make tangible progress on its grand strategic plan to rebuild “Fortress Europe” and thus beat Poland in those two’s competition to become the US’ top partner for containing Russia in Central & Eastern Europe. Accordingly, with Germany informally assuming partial responsibility for Poland’s security and in a much better economic-financial position to fund its goal of building Europe’s largest army, there’s a certain logic to Poland bowing out of this race.
The argument can be made that Germany might feel more comfortable with a largely weakened and militarily neutered Poland than a strong one that could potentially revert back to conservative-nationalism at a future time and then resume their competition. On the other hand, however, maintaining some (key qualifier) of the prior government’s rearmament and modernization programs could enable Poland to relieve some the burden upon Germany for its envisaged continental hegemony.
The common denominator between both scenarios is that Germany wants to greatly reduce Poland’s competitive potential and therefore preempt any possible return of its Great Power plans at a future date, ergo why it’s pleased to hear that the Polish-Korean arms deal might fall apart. The latest signal coming from its allied government in Warsaw indicates that the whole thing might not go through even if more funding is secured from Seoul’s side so Berlin’s goal might soon be attained at least in part.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/germany- ... the-polish
******
Hungary: President Resigns Following Child Abuse Pardon Scandal
Former Hungarian President Katalin Novak. | Photo: X/ @DK71834510
Published 12 February 2024
"There shall be no mercy for paedophiles," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said last week.
On Saturday, Hungarian President Katalin Novak resigned from office, following a child abuse pardon scandal.
"I am addressing you as President for the last time, I resign from the position of President of the Republic. I apologize to those I have offended and to all the victims who might have felt I did not stand by them. I have been, am, and will be in support of protecting children and families," she said on national television channel M1.
Novak pardoned Endre K., former deputy director of a children's home, in April 2023. The pardon led to protests on Friday in Budapest demanding her resignation.
Shortly following Novak's resignation, Hungary's former Justice Minister Judit Varga also resigned from public office.
The text reads, "Scandal in Hungary. Hungarian President Katalin Novak announces her resignation after it came to light that she granted a pardon to the deputy director of an orphanage who tried to hide cases of pedophilia, of up to ten minors, committed by the director of the center."
"I take political responsibility for countersigning the President's decision. I am withdrawing from public life, resigning my parliamentary mandate, and stepping down as the head of the list for the European Parliament," said Varga, who was minister of justice when Novak signed the controversial pardon.
"Katalin Novak and Judit Varga have made a responsible decision, which we respect," said Mate Kocsis, head of the parliamentary group of the ruling Fidesz party.
On Thursday, Prime Minister Viktor Orban submitted a constitutional amendment on behalf of the government to prevent a pardon from being granted to perpetrators of crimes committed against minors. "There shall be no mercy for paedophiles," Orban said.
Elected to office by the Hungarian parliament in 2022, Novak has been the country's first female president and also the youngest ever to hold the mostly ceremonial position.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Hun ... -0003.html
******
EU’s Borrell: Cut Off Arms to Israel
February 12, 2024
On Monday, the EU’s top foreign policy official rebuked the U.S. president and other world leaders for decrying the loss of life in Gaza while also sending weapons to the Netanyahu government.
EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell in 2022. (European Parliament, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams
The European Union’s top foreign policy official said Monday that the Biden administration and other governments professing concern about the grisly death toll in the Gaza Strip should stop supplying so much weaponry to the Israeli military as it carries out one of the most devastating bombing campaigns in modern history.
Pointing to U.S. President Joe Biden’s statement late last week that Israel’s war on Gaza has been “over the top,” E.U. High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said during a press conference in Brussels, “Well, if you believe that too many people are being killed, maybe you should provide less arms in order to prevent so many people being killed.”
Borrell then extended that suggestion to the rest of the international community, saying if governments believe that “this is a slaughter, that too many people are being killed, maybe they have to think about the provision of arms.”
“Everybody goes to Tel Aviv, begging, ‘Please don’t do that, protect civilians, don’t kill so many.’ How many is too many?” Borrell asked. “It is a little bit contradictory to continue saying that there are ‘too many people being killed, too many people being killed, please take care of people, please don’t kill so many.’ Stop saying please and [do] something.”
Shortly following Borrell’s remarks, veteran Associated Press reporter Matt Lee grilled U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller on what leverage the Biden administration has used thus far to pressure the Israeli government to protect civilians in Gaza.
Lee challenged Miller by saying that top U.S. officials, including Biden, standing up and “wagging [their] finger” at Israel was “not really leverage.”
Miller responded by citing “the words of the president of the United States” and other diplomatic engagement—a reply that exemplified the approach Borrell urged nations to abandon.
The U.S. is by far the largest supplier of arms to Israel, but other countries — including the United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands — have provided the country with weapons and other military equipment deployed during its ongoing assault on Gaza.
On Monday, a Netherlands court ordered the Dutch government to stop exporting F-35 fighter jet parts to Israel, citing the “clear risk” that the warplanes “might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.” The government said it would appeal the ruling to the nation’s Supreme Court.
Borrell’s call for restrictions on weapons transfers to Israel came weeks after a coalition of leading humanitarian organizations urged all countries to impose an arms embargo on Israel and Palestinian militants, declaring that “all states have the obligation to prevent atrocity crimes and promote adherence to norms that protect civilians.”
The U.S. Senate over the weekend advanced legislation that would provide Israel with over $10 billion in military assistance on top of what the Biden administration has already provided since the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) was the lone member of the upper chamber’s Democratic caucus to vote against advancing the bill.
In the E.U., the foreign ministers of 16 countries received a letter from human rights groups on Monday urging them to do everything in their power to ensure Israel complies with the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) interim order, which requires Israel to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza.
“Furthermore,” the letter reads,
“the E.U. and its member states must call for a cease-fire to ensure that no genocidal acts might be committed by the state of Israel and ensure that they do not cooperate on potential genocidal acts by suspending arms trade with Israel.”
Pressure on governments to stop providing arms to the Israeli military is growing as the Netanyahu government prepares for an invasion of Rafah, a small Gaza city to which more than a million displaced Palestinians fled in an attempt to find refuge from incessant Israeli airstrikes.
During Monday’s press conference in Brussels, Borrell criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to forcibly “evacuate” Rafah’s civilian population.
“They are going to evacuate. Where, to the moon?” he asked. “Where are they going to evacuate these people?”
https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/12/e ... to-israel/
Talk is cheap, don't hold your breath for action.
..
******
Poland’s Economic Subordination To Germany Follows Its Political & Military Subordination
ANDREW KORYBKO
FEB 13, 2024
What’s taking place is Donald Tusk’s systematic subordination of Poland to German hegemony as a quid pro quo for its support of his return to power.
Polish conservative-nationalist opposition leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s prior assessment of returning Prime Minister Donald Tusk being a German agent continues to be extended credence as the latter’s government makes move after move in support of this thesis. Last month, it shied away from pressing for its predecessor’s $1.3 trillion World War II reparations demand in favor of “creative compensation”, which returning Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski later said could simply be a “dialogue center” instead.
Around the same time, Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz signed a deal in Brussels for partially implementing the “military Schengen” proposal from last November with Germany and the Netherlands. This agreement will enable the free transit of German troop and equipment to and from Poland en route to Berlin’s new tank base in Lithuania, which is the first time since World War II that it’ll have such military rights and is thus understandably opposed by patriotic Poles.
These moves respectively represented Poland’s political and military subordination to Germany, which is now being complemented by an economic component after Tusk’s government – that some describe as a regime due to its totalitarian crackdown on the opposition – decided to reconsider a megaproject. The Central Communication Part, known by its Polish abbreviation as the CPK, is now being audited and the future of this interconnected air-rail hub in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) is accordingly in doubt.
The CPK is one of six megaprojects that the former conservative-nationalist authorities prioritized as part of their plans to have Poland become the CEE’s leader and then establish a “sphere of influence” across this half of Europe for balancing Germany hegemony over the continent. That grand strategic goal is now in shambles after Tusk politically subordinated Poland to Germany by tacitly rescinding reparations demands, militarily via the “military Schengen”, and now economically by reconsidering the CPK.
Coupled with the newfound uncertainty over Poland’s $22 billion arms deal with South Korea last year, any drastic downscaling of the CPK alongside fundamental changes to the country’s military modernization program could deal an irreparable blow to its prior leadership ambitions. Taken together, all these moves in recent months work against Poland’s objective national interests and benefit Berlin, thus extending maximum credence to Kaczynski’s speculation about Tusk being a German agent.
Tacitly rescinding reparations demands is a symbolic sign of fealty to his patrons, while his government’s decision to go along with “military Schengen” and reconsider large parts of last year’s massive arms deal with South Korea weaken its armed forces and create the conditions for dependence on Germany’s. Tusk’s second thoughts about the CPK are the icing on the cake since they’ll kill Poland’s future economic competitiveness and therefore maintain Germany’s flagging one amidst that country’s ongoing struggles.
What’s taking place is Tusk’s systematic subordination of Poland to German hegemony as a quid pro quo for its support of his return to power. Germany correctly assessed that Poland is the greatest obstacle to its envisaged “Fortress Europe”, which refers to its grand strategic goal of peacefully capturing control of the bloc. In response, it sought to dismantle Poland’s competitiveness by installing its loyal proxy who’ll obediently do its bidding to that end, which Tusk is systematically doing as explained in this analysis.
The way in which he’s carrying out his task confirms the prescience of Kaczynski’s warning that “A specific plan is already being prepared, the implementation of which would lead not only to the deprivation of our independence and sovereignty, but even to the annihilation of the Polish state. We would become an area inhabited by Poles, ruled from the outside.” After Poland just politically, militarily, and economically subordinated itself to Berlin, it’s now just a Polish-inhabited polity ruled by Germany.
https://korybko.substack.com/p/polands- ... ination-to
******
Russia Issues Arrest Warrant for Estonian PM Kaja Kallas
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. | Photo: X/ @kajakallas
Published 13 February 2024 (59 minutes ago)
Russia initiated 16 criminal cases for the destruction, damage, and desecration of Soviet soldiers' monuments and graves in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
The Russian Interior Ministry issued a warrant for the arrest of Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas and other senior officials and deputies from Latvia and Lithuania.
The reason for the warrant is the destruction or damage caused to monuments of Soviet soldiers in the Baltic country. In this regard, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov accused the Baltic countries of "hostile actions against Russia's historical memory."
In Kallas's case, the arrest warrant is based on the removal in August 2022 of the Soviet T-34 tank and other monuments in the city of Narva. Later that year, the head of Russia's Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin, ordered an investigation into the matter.
During meetings of the European Union (EU) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), PM Kallas has repeatedly spoken in favor of supplying arms to Ukraine and tightening sanctions against Russia.
In January 2021, she became the first woman to lead the government of the Baltic country, a position she retained after her party won the legislative elections held in March 2023.
Russia also issued arrest warrants against Estonian Secretary of State Taimar Peterkop and Lithuanian Culture Minister Simonas Kairys.
The list of arrest warrants also includes 59 out of 68 members of the Latvian Parliament for voting in favor of denouncing the treaty with Russia for the preservation of monuments.
Due to the dismantling of a Soviet monument in Riga, 15 municipal deputies from the Latvian capital were also included in the list, as were former ministers of Interior, Finance, Justice, and Agriculture.
In the case of Lithuania, a similar incident in the capital, Vilnius, led to warrants being issued for Kairys and six other municipal deputies. The same occurred in the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda, after which the mayor of the city and 24 officials and historians were included in the Russian Interior Ministry's list.
Arrest warrants also cover several Polish officials such as Walbrzych Mayor Roman Szelemej, and the Institute of National Remembrance president Karol Nawrocki.
"For crimes against the memory of those who liberated the world from Nazism and fascism, one must be held accountable! This is just the beginning!" commented Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry.
So far, Russia has initiated 16 criminal cases for the destruction, damage, and desecration of Soviet soldiers' monuments and graves in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and Ukraine.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Rus ... -0006.html