FFrance and Poland want to cooperate more closely in the areas of defense, nuclear energy and food security. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and French President Emmanuel Macron announced this on Monday at the Élysée Palace in Paris. A new friendship treaty is to be drawn up with a focus on armaments, defense as well as energy and agriculture, which will replace the existing treaty between France and Poland from 1991.
“Welcome back!” Macron greeted the Polish Prime Minister. During his inaugural visit, Tusk expressed his willingness to rebuild important alliances in Europe. He deliberately traveled first to Brussels, to Kiev and now to Paris because he wanted to emphasize the importance of the partnerships.
Tusk wanted to travel from Paris to Berlin. Tusk and Macron indirectly distanced themselves from Chancellor Olaf Scholz's recent statement in Washington that Ukraine would be lost without American help.
Calming the anger of farmers
Both emphasized that they would support Ukraine militarily in the long term and would not accept defeat. They support the promise of EU enlargement and want to contribute to the reconstruction of Ukraine. For undisclosed reasons, both are not coming to the Munich Security Conference. When it comes to the energy issue, it is important to approach each other more closely, emphasized Tusk. Poland belongs to the European alliance of pro-nuclear power states, against which the federal government has set up a counter-alliance.
In the dispute over Ukrainian agricultural exports, Tusk and Macron want to work more closely together to appease the anger of farmers in their countries. Tusk described France as an important partner “with very similar assessments” of the geopolitical challenges. France and Poland are “strong partners” who are ready to defend the borders in Europe and their territory, said Tusk. “There are no alternatives to the EU and NATO,” said the Polish head of government. He welcomed the fact that the so-called Weimar Triangle of Poland, France and Germany would be revitalized after the change of government in Warsaw.
On Monday afternoon, French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné, Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski met for talks in La Celle-Saint-Cloud near Paris. One of the topics was the resistance to Russian disinformation campaigns. Since last July, the three countries have been investigating indications of increased digital influence that could be traced back to Russia, it was said in Paris. The findings are summarized in a report. According to this, a Russian information portal is supposed to spread country-specific disinformation on a total of 195 websites. The aim is to stir up war-weariness and give the impression that Ukraine has already lost the war.
The online campaign is supported based on the findings of artificial intelligence. Fears were expressed in Paris that a fake news offensive could be expected on the second anniversary of the attack on Ukraine and the tenth anniversary of the annexation of Crimea. A large part of the campaign is automated. There are “sleeping” infrastructures that could be activated at any time. However, the activity of the information portals pravda.de and pravda.fr is still very low with 34,000 and 10,700 visitors per day respectively, it was said in Paris.