Poland’s Subordination To Germany Now Includes Educational, Judicial, & Diplomatic Dimensions

The latest phase of Poland’s political crisis might lead to Tusk manipulating Duda’s nationalist views and shared pathological fear of Russia into having him sign off on a conventional intervention in Ukraine in order to distract from domestic turmoil.

One of the most profound developments in Europe over the past three months apart from the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine is Poland’s comprehensive subordination to Germany since the return of Berlin-backed Donald Tusk to that country’s premiership in December. Since then, he withdrew Poland’s German reparations claims, agreed to its “military Schengen” proposal, and began to reconsider a connectivity megaproject, thus representing political, military, and economic subordination.

This fealty to his patron’s interests has since expanded to include educational, judicial, and diplomatic dimensions. The first refers to the removal of some key historical figures and events from the school curriculum per Tusk’s plan to slash it all by 20%, the second concerns his government’s reversal of their predecessors’ judicial reforms that strengthened Poland’s autonomy vis-à-vis the German-led EU, and the third involves replacing 50 ambassadors. The last one’s justification says a lot about Tusk’s worldview.

In his words, “we need to build and improve a team that is loyal to the Polish state”, which implies that his liberal-globalist government’s comprehensive subordination of Poland to Germany is patriotic. By default, this in turn implies that his conservative-nationalist predecessors’ comprehensive efforts to strengthen Poland’s independence vis-à-vis Germany was treasonous. In particular, Tusk is suggesting that the ambassadors that they appointed serve partisan interests and not Polish ones, which isn’t true.

For as imperfect as their policies were, the conservative-nationalists sincerely believed that they were putting Polish interests above all others, while the liberal-globalists prioritize Germany’s out of ideological solidarity with the EU’s de facto leader. To that end, they’re systematically dismantling their predecessors’ pro-independence moves in the political, military, economic, educational, judicial, and diplomatic spheres, which they justify on the false pretext of repairing traitorous damage to the state.

In their minds, conservative-nationalists are “racists”, “fascists”, and “xenophobes” who exploit democratic mandates to impose de facto dictatorships, ergo why “the ends justify the means” in the sense that even legally dubious policies are acceptable for “restoring democracy”. Tusk and his ilk regard Germany as the continent’s “democratic fountainhead” whose leadership must be maintained at all costs for the “greater good”, which is why they’re voluntarily crushing Polish independence for its benefit.

Instead of continuing their predecessors’ policies of trying to restore Poland’s Great Power status, they prefer to revert it back to being a German puppet state so as to restore that country’s superpower trajectory. It was earlier explained here and here how this trend is aimed at having Germany lead the EU’s containment of Russia at America’s behest after the Ukrainian Conflict ends in order free up some of the US’ troops for redeployment from there to Asia for more muscularly containing China.

The liberal-globalists believe that anything that stands in the way of this “greater good”, such as the conservative-nationalists’ plans to block the expansion of German influence in Central & Eastern Europe (CEE) by restoring Poland’s long-lost status as a Great Power, must be fervently opposed. This explains the six primary moves that Tusk made thus far for subordinating Poland to Germany, the grand strategic importance of which will now be briefly reviewed in the order that they mentioned in this piece.

Withdrawing Poland’s German reparations claims was meant to show Poles that it’s no longer acceptable to hold a grudge against that country and to subsequently precondition the public for their own country following its political lead in the coming future. Shortly thereafter, Poland agreed to allow German troops and equipment to freely transit across its territory, with Foreign Minister Sikorski even supporting the idea of permanently hosting German forces on Polish soil for the first time since World War II.

This was followed by Tusk beginning to reconsider his predecessors’ CPK connectivity megaproject that would enable Poland to compete with Germany as a major CEE logistical hub if it enters into fruition, thus undercutting his own country in order to continue giving its neighbor an edge. After that, he moved to slash the curriculum by 20%, with the removal of some key historical figures and events serving to reduce patriotic sentiment among the next generation as well as reshaping how they view Germany.

His reversal of the former government’s judicial reforms was then approved by the EU, which rewarded him by unfreezing nearly $150 billion worth of funds that were withheld from his predecessors as punishment for strengthening Poland’s autonomy vis-à-vis that German-led bloc. This money could then be creatively reinvested in ways that boost his appeal among the public and help keep the conservative-nationalists out of power during the next elections.

The last move regarding his planned purge of a whopping 50 ambassadors shows that he doesn’t trust them to execute his pro-German foreign policy at the expense of Poland’s objective national interests due to their diametrically opposite worldview, which he falsely implied is treasonous. To be sure, diplomatic officials are obligated to follow orders, but this commitment becomes legally dubious if they sincerely believe that what they’re being tasked to do is genuinely treasonous.

Whereas Trump’s diplomats undercut him at every opportunity on false Russiagate-connected claims that his envisaged policies were treasonous, those diplomats appointed under the previous government arguably have legitimate reasons to do the same when it comes to Tusk’s policies as explained. The only way to ensure compliance with his demands is to remove them power, but President Duda – who’s a conservative-nationalist that’ll remain in office till his term expires in August 2025 – has to approve this.

He already said that he won’t, however, which could lead to yet another constitutional crisis on top of the others that Tusk has provoked since January. Poland is therefore expected to plunge further into what’s already its worst political crisis since the 1980s, and there’s a chance that its popular farmers protests could morph into a modern-day Solidarity movement, hence the need for a major distraction. If Tusk becomes desperate enough, then this could take the form of conventionally intervening in Ukraine.

Although he and his Defense Minister refuted French President Macron’s suggestion that this is in the cards, his Foreign Minister – who’s married to neoconservative warmonger Anne Applebaum and brags about having a son in the US military – insisted that this can’t be ruled out. Duda would have to order any such move since he’s the Commander-in-Chief, but seeing as how Sikorski said that NATO troops are already there but wouldn’t say whose, it’s possible that Duda already secretly signed off on this in part.

After all, Duda and Tusk came together in what Politico described as an “absolutely unique sign of political unity” to lobby for more US aid to Ukraine during their trip to DC this week to commemorate their country’s 25 years in NATO, so it wouldn’t be surprising if they were on the same page about that. This analysis here argues that they might have actually sought American approval for openly intervening in Ukraine, possibly alongside France and/or the UK, in order to prevent the front lines from collapsing.

Poland’s bipartisan pathological fear of Russia accounts for why they came together over Ukraine even though Polish attitudes towards that country are souring as proven by a top EU think tank’s recent poll. Nevertheless, as long as Western Ukraine isn’t “annexed”/“reunited” with Poland and its 6 million people who live on the land that Warsaw used to control for four centuries (which is longer than Russia controlled most of its own land) aren’t subsidized by taxpayers, the public might not revolt to stop it.  

It's therefore possible that the latest phase of Poland’s political crisis might lead to Tusk manipulating Duda’s nationalist views and shared pathological fear of Russia into having him sign off on a conventional intervention in Ukraine in order to distract from domestic turmoil. That could complicate Germany’s interests but help save Tusk’s political skin, thus ironically being the “greater good” that Berlin might have to accept after ordering Poland to sacrifice its own interests in six spheres since December on similar grounds.