By leafing through the European Union family album, even recent photos took a solid stroke of old. Take 2014, the year of the annexation of Crimea by Vladimir Putin, prelude to his war of invasion of 2022. France and Germany were the obvious pillars of the EU. Eleven years later, their respective leaders are out of breath. French influence is damaged by the political crisis and the spectrum of its dropout, Germany is destabilized by the rise of extremes and the questioning of its economic model.
Poland is gaining power in all respects. Politically, with a competent and pro-European Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who has experience and authority in the Brussels institutions. Economically, with growth that has exceeded the European average for more than twenty years. Militarily, Poland is preparing to become the first conventional military power on the continent.
In 2014, Polish forces were the ninths of NATO. They are today in third place after the United States and Turkey. Their active soldiers have doubled and exceed 200,000 men – as much as France and more than Germany. The defense budget tripled to 35 billion dollars, ahead of Italy-in Europe, only France, Great Britain and Germany spend more. As a percentage of GDP, Poland is the only NATO country to exceed 4 % (Tusk announces 4.7 % for 2025).
Poland, so attached to American security, can become the new anchor of a Europe threatened both by the aggression of Russia and by the uncertainty of American engagement in NATO. Certainly, France and Germany remain the motor forces and finance most of the European budget. But in the “broken world”, according to the expression of the review Large continent, Poland carries the hope of this flickering “European sovereignty”, hammered by Emmanuel Macron and become more necessary than ever.
“Polish moment”
It is “the Polish moment” described with a joyful expertise and clarity by diplomat Pierre Buhler, who was ambassador in Warsaw from 2012 to 2016. His book, his book, Poland, a story of an ambition (Tallandier) is more than a political and historical essay, the biography of a country which he seems to love as a person and whose black holes he tells and the amazing resistance capacity over the centuries. The sentence of Victor Hugo, which the author quotes, seems perpetual, as much as it precisely describes the current role of France and Poland in the face of the imperialist, hegemonic, commercial and ideological wars that the United States, Russia and China lead. In 1846, before the Chamber of Peers, Hugo celebrated France and Poland as “two sisters who fought together for European civilization”, distinguishing their roles: “The French people who were the missionary, the Polish people in being the knight “. In 2024, Poland knows better than others, for having been the martyr of its neighbors on several occasions, which Vladimir Putin has in mind when he compares Russia to an ocean without borders, intended to grow according to From what he decides to be part of his “zone of influence”.
Since January 1, Poland has taken the semi -annual presidency of the Council of the European Union and its main theme, without surprise, has been security. Building “a more sovereign Europe” was that of the French presidency, in 2022. However, the inventor of “European sovereignty” is him, Clément Beaune. Former advisor to Emmanuel Macron in Bercy and the Elysée, former Minister of Europe, he had proposed this concept to Emmanuel Macron who made it the heart of his famous Sorbonne speech of 2017. Many of those who had Rejected the idea by raising the shoulders now claim it as obvious. The tasty reflections and memories reported in I would say despite everything that politics is beautiful (Stock) recall this “missionary” role of France in Europe including the one who was the favorite of President Macron, then banished by him, remains largely a carrier.
“The two sisters” will resist the broken world? Each of them must face a decisive presidential election. Poland, May 18 and June 1. France, we don’t know when. In both cases, the extreme right is ready.
.