Arkadiusz Mularczyk announced the event in an interview with public broadcaster Polish Radio on Tuesday.
He told Polish Radio: “In June, a major international conference will be held in Athens, bringing together Polish, Italian, Greek and Serbian lawyers.”
He added: “Step by step, we are starting an international discussion about ways of securing compensation for World War II from Germany,”
Mularczyk told Polish Radio that foreign media outlets, including in Germany and the United States, were carrying “a big number of articles” about war reparations for Poland.
He said: “We’ve been very proactive and we’ve been leading a diplomatic and information campaign that is very inconvenient for Germany.”
The Polish deputy foreign minister said that these measures by the government in Warsaw were also part of "a more general battle for the remembrance of history,” Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
According to Mularczyk, “Poland has been raising the issue of reparations to secure compensation from Germany for World War II, while also trying to educate people and raise awareness” abroad about the consequences of the war.
Greece, which is preparing to host the conference, is entitled to seek EUR 269.5 billion from the German government in redress for the losses it suffered during World War II, according to a 2017 report by Greek lawmakers, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Poland demands WWII damages from Germany
In April, Poland’s government adopted a resolution “on the need to regulate, in Polish-German relations, the issue of reparations, compensation and redress” for the losses caused by the German invasion and subsequent occupation of Poland during World War II.
The government said that the document “confirms that the issue of compensation for the damage and harm caused by Germany during World War II has not been settled in the form of an international agreement between the Republic of Poland and the Federal Republic of Germany, and that such an agreement must be entered into.”
In September last year, the Polish government announced that the losses suffered by Poland at the hands of Nazi Germany during World War II totalled PLN 6.22 trillion (EUR 1.3 trillion) and that it would demand compensation from Berlin.
In October, Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau signed a formal note to the government in Berlin, demanding compensation for losses Poland sustained during the war.
According to the German government, "the issue of reparations and compensation for World War II losses remains closed” and Berlin "does not intend to enter into negotiations on the matter," officials have said.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, polskieradio24.pl