MidnightCall Magazine
News From Israel MagazineFrance Sees Poland as Partner on EU Defense
France is beginning to see Poland as a key partner in building an EU military capability alongside NATO."It's important that Poland take its rightful place in the mission of strengthening Europe's defense capacity. Our two countries' views are largely similar and we will work together on this under the French EU presidency," Mr Sarkozy said in an interview with Polish daily Dziennik on the morning of his trip.I'd like to congratulate Poland on its contribution to the European Union mission in Chad," he added, in a statement full of praise for Warsaw's European credentials. "In just a few years you have taken a deservedly important place in the actions of Europe all over the world." "I hope this will be an important moment in relations between our two countries," he told Dziennik. "Today - when we are both working together in a unified Europe - we have to give them a new momentum."The warm rhetoric on Poland's importance in the EU stands in stark contrast to French President Jacques Chirac's statement in 2003 that Poland should have kept quiet on the Iraq war, which marked a nadir [low point] in Franco-Polish co-operation. "The countries of the former eastern bloc were long considered as second class EU members, but now want a more intensive dialogue with France," a French diplomat told AFP. "With these strategic partnerships, we are showing we do not treat them with scant regard.""This is a propitious moment for improving relations between Paris and Warsaw," Polish analyst Ena Kolarska-Bobinska told Les Echos. "Relations between France and Germany, the EU's two leaders, are not so good right now, so the smaller countries in the union can play a more important role."-euobserver.com, 28 May 2008The spirit of “peace” and unity is clearly at work here. Paris and Warsaw did not have good relations in the past, but now things are changing. Although defense is a major issue in theory, in practice, the majority of Europeans see it as a waste of time and resources.
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