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Guido Westerwelle shows new direction of German Foreign Policy
By making his first trip as German foreign minister to Poland, Guido Westerwelle showed that his policy has a new eastern direction. It was a bit of a surprise as traditionally the new minister would visit Paris at first.
His decision to travel to Warsaw first has given a hint of his agenda, which was confirmed by him after a two-hour meeting with his counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski, when he said that deepening relations with Poland would be one his "core concerns".
Sikorski was very enthusiastic towards Westerwelle’s gesture and said that relations between Germany and Poland were currently better than they had ever been in history. Also Prime Minister Donald Tusk seemed to be satisfied with German foreign minister visit. "Poland and Germany are well aware that bilateral relations are very good," Tusk said, "We must do all we can to make them even better."
It is no wonder that new German government, sworn on Wednesday, is moving its sympahty towards Poland. First of all, generally anti-Polish SPD is not in the government any more. Secondly Poland is the only European country that was able to overcome the financial crisis and has a reasonable number of votes in the European Parliament. For this reason, Poland seen as Eastern Europe leader, seems to be a perfect partner for Germany that would be much easier to convince that UK or France towards German ideas on European Union.
