Arkadiusz Mularczyk made the declaration in an interview with Polish state news agency PAP on Tuesday.
The deputy foreign minister was speaking in Berlin, during a two-day visit for talks with senior German politicians about Poland’s claim for compensation for World War II.
Mularczyk told PAP he was meeting with “representatives of all political parties” in Germany.
He said: “On Monday, I had a meeting with Dietmar Nietan from the co-governing Social Democratic SPD party, who serves as a coordinator of contacts with Poland" at the German foreign ministry" and is well familiar with the main issues that pose certain problems in Polish-German relations.”
Polish, German lawmakers to meet in May
Mularczyk added that he and Nietan had agreed “to continue the dialogue in a wider format, with representatives of all political groupings, and the forum will be the parliamentary Polish-German Friendship Group.”
Mularczyk said the meeting was provisionally slated for May 22 and would feature “all parliamentary groupings, both from the government and opposition.”
He added the talks would be designed “to raise awareness of the problems in Polish-German relations among politicians from various parties.”
Among these problems, Mularczyk listed “compensation and reparations for World War II, an absolute lack of symmetry, even a certain degree of discrimination, in the teaching of the Polish language to Polish children and youth in Germany,” as well as “a delay in efforts to commemorate the Polish victims of German occupation.”
He said it was “embarrassing” that “so many years after the end of World War II, there is still no memorial” in Berlin to honour "the Polish victims of German occupation," and added that “evidently there is a lack of political will around this issue.”
Mularczyk told reporters that “today, no German party wants to be the first to say" that the government in Berlin should sit down for talks with Poland on World War II damages.
He said: “It is my hope that we’ll create some form of cooperation in the future.”
Push for WWII damages
Mularczyk also said in the interview that the Polish government was "taking consistent action on the international stage” after Germany “sent a negative reply to our diplomatic note" about compensation for World War II.
He told PAP that he last week sent a letter detailing Poland’s claim for compensation from Germany “to all US Congressmen and senators.” The message contained a link to a special website, he said.
He announced that Warsaw would also "notify the European Commission, the European Parliament and national parliaments" about the issue.
He stated: “We are completing the translations of our report about Poland’s wartime losses into various foreign languages. I believe the German edition of the report will soon be widely distributed in Germany and other European countries.”
Talks in Berlin
Mularczyk said that during his visit to Berlin, he also held talks with Wolfgang Kubicki, the Vice-President of the Bundestag from the co-governing liberal FDP party.
Moreover, he said he met with Tobias Lindner, a senior foreign ministry official responsible for security policy, and Norbert Röttgen, a senior politician with the conservative CDU party.
Mularczyk argued that “it is important to engage in dialogue with all the political parties in Germany,” because “there must be political consensus, there must be awareness about the nature of the various problems in Polish-German relations.”
Poland demands WWII damages from Germany
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.
A German-language edition of the Polish government’s report on the country's wartime losses will be unveiled in Germany in May, public broadcaster Polish Radio's IAR news agency reported.
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: PAP, polskieradio.pl