Poland has not yet taken Germany's leading role in EU foreign policy

It is premature to conclude that Poland has taken Germany's role in leading EU foreign policy. While Poland has gained unprecedented importance, Germany still retains control over the EU's foreign policy.

The program director of the Valdai Club, Andrei Suzhentsov, has published an article entitled: "How the 'new' eastern EU members have taken control of the Union." This is the third analysis of Germany by experts from the Valdai Club within two weeks. Previously, those by Fyodor Lukyanov and Timofei Bordachev were published, which dealt with "how the Greens made Germany Eastern European" and "how the US humiliates Germany and the Russians are deeply disappointed in the spinelessness of Berlin's elites."

The common thread that unites this series of articles is that since the beginning of the Russian military operation, Germany has lost its leading position in the formulation of EU foreign policy. Lukyanov attributes this to the disproportionate influence of the radical, US-allied Greens, Bordachev blames US interference, while Suzentsov argues that the rapid regional rise of US-allied Poland is responsible. As can be seen, all three approaches can be traced back to the United States in one way or another.

As insightful as the analyses of these experts may be, they are nevertheless incomplete. Lukyanov did not address the role of Poland's rapid rise in the region, Bordachev downplayed the long-term impact of Germany's new regional approach to Russia – regardless of what is behind it – while Suzhentsov hastily concluded that Poland has already replaced Germany in the role of leading EU foreign policy.

The first two expert analyses have already been criticized in detail and constructively in my contributions. The first article can be found here, the second here. The present article will therefore constructively critique Suzhentsov's assessment in order to complement the above-mentioned contributions, with the purpose of comprehensively articulating a contrary interpretation of Germany's current role in the formulation of EU foreign policy. This post argues that Suzhentsov's conclusion that Poland has replaced Germany's role in EU foreign policy is premature, and also points out some shortcomings in the reasoning he outlined in his contribution.

The ideological fallacy of the Western elites

First of all, Suzhentsov is right when he states that "the Ukraine conflict shows the emergence of a new balance of power in Europe," driven by Poland's rapid regional rise. But he is wrong when he suggests that this could have been prevented if the EU had not enlarged eastwards. The German economic model was based not only on affordable Russian energy, as he rightly noted, but also on access to the emerging markets of the former Eastern Bloc, of which Poland is by far the largest in this part of Europe.

The historical distancing in relations with Russia led Poland and its Baltic partners to prioritize their integration into the German-led EU and the US-led NATO. In both cases, these are complementary Western structures of hegemony that expanded in parallel to the East. Berlin accepted the expansion of the EU for economic reasons, while Washington was motivated by the expansion of NATO for military reasons. But both expansions ultimately served to advance the common unipolar liberal-globalist worldview.

Central Europe and China discredited the liberal-globalist worldview

Of importance to this contribution is the dogmatic belief in the inevitable erosion of ethnic-national identities in favor of supranational identities, such as the EU. However, this belief was discredited by socio-cultural trends in Poland and the Baltic states. These countries moved in the opposite direction, making ethnonational identity the cornerstone of their post-communist statehood, even though they were integrated into supranational political-military structures.

This is similar to what happened after the West integrated China into its supranational economic structures, such as the World Trade Organization (WTO). The West assumed that this would inevitably lead to China's political integration into the desired liberal-globalist world order, but China retained the economic pillar of its post-revolutionary statehood, just as Poland and the Baltic states retained their ethno-national identity.

Accordingly, these countries were anxious to advance the interests associated with the respective pillars of their own statehood within those structures in which one could successfully integrate. Poland and the Baltic states have promoted Russophobia within the EU and NATO, while China has promoted multipolarity in finance within the WTO. Ultimately, these countries have been extremely successful, even if this success is largely due to circumstances beyond their direct control: the proxy war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine and the financial crisis in 2008.

The NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine created the narrative context in which Poland and the Baltic states were able to successfully advance Russophobia in the West, while the financial crisis of 2008 created the conditions in which China was able to successfully advance financial multipolarity across the Global South.

Russophobia and multipolarity in finance were then embraced by many people in the West and the Global South, setting in motion a series of rapid events that in turn changed the politics of other countries. This led to economically pragmatic and Russia-friendly Germany formulating an overall Russophobic strategy, just as Saudi Arabia, committed to the dollar and allied with the US, seemed willing to formulate a strategy based on multipolarity in finance.

The role of Germany and Saudi Arabia in the emerging world order

In each of these two examples listed above, those who lagged far behind these trends have tried to make up for lost time and play a leading role in doing so, recognizing that there is no going back to the status quo as it prevailed before the Ukraine conflict or the financial crisis in 2008. The Russophobic trend, for which Poland and the Baltic states are responsible, cannot be sustained without Germany, just as China's multipolarity in finance cannot succeed without Saudi Arabia.

Both Germany and Saudi Arabia would have preferred to leave everything as it was, as far as german-Russian economic relations and Saudi-American financial relations are concerned. However, both countries had to realize that the circumstances beyond their control were responsible for the change in these relations. Thus, Berlin moved closer to the US, while Riyadh moved closer to China, after one of these superpowers is responsible for triggering the Russophobic and the other for the financial multipolarity tendencies – thus reshaping the aforementioned axes.

The strategic symbiosis between Germany, Poland and Saudi Arabia, China

The US is responsible for the proxy war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine, which led to the Russophobia of Poles and the Baltic states becoming the norm throughout the West. China is responsible for de-dollarization in the decade and a half following the 2008 financial crisis. Poland is still by far the biggest beneficiary of the EU's German-led economic programs, while the petroyuan, on which China's financial multipolarity ultimately depends, cannot succeed without Saudi Arabia's support.

Instead of using their relations to curb these trends, Germany and Saudi Arabia have each decided to play a leading role, concluding that there is no going back to the previous status quo and therefore it is in their national interest not to be left behind. Germany decided to lead the European containment of Russia, whose spiritual origins can be traced back to Poland and the Baltic states, while Saudi Arabia was ready to accelerate the de-dollarization pushed by China.

Analytical insights

From these observations, several analytical insights emerge on the topic of Germany's role in leadership in EU foreign policy. First, the so-called "end of history" that the liberal-globalist elite in the German EU leadership and in the American NATO leadership expected after 1991 has not taken place. This is also reflected in the prioritization of ethno-national politics in Poland and the Baltic states.

Secondly, the status of the above-mentioned policies has led these countries to advance corresponding political interests within the Western hegemonic structures into which they had successfully integrated.

Third, the proxy war between NATO and Russia in Ukraine, which erupted for reasons beyond the control of these countries, created the narrative context in which Poland and the Baltic states were able to successfully spread Russophobia in the West, just as they had been striving for decades.

Fourthly, the resulting sequence of events led to the fact that countries like Germany finally came to the conclusion that it was impossible to restore the previous status quo. Therefore, they tried to jump on the bandwagon and pursue their national interests, as policymakers now saw them in this new environment.

And fifthly, far from handing over control of the EU's foreign policy to Poland, Germany is actively competing with Poland over which of the two countries can most effectively contain Russia in Europe.

Read more of our GR Analysis