Poland won't back Sie Germans!
Poland's centre-right opposition, poised to win a general election, will refuse to back Germany's bid for a permanent seat on the U N Security Council as long as it ignores Polish interests, a party leader said today.
''The Germans have to understand that in Poland soon there will be a new government which will not for some inconceivable reason support German interests as long as the Germans will not support our interests,'' Donald Tusk told a news conference.
Tusk is a leader of the centre-right Civic Platform expected to win the September 25 general election and the front-runner ahead of presidential polls two weeks later. He was speaking at a news conference with French Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy.
Germany has backed Poland's European Union ambitions, but relations between the biggest EU nation and its largest newcomer have cooled because of conflicts over the Iraq war, the European constitution and the bloc's budget. Poles have also watched with growing unease Chancellor Gerhard Schroder's cordial relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, fearing Berlin would shape EU relations with Moscow ignoring Poland's concerns.
Tusk's likely government allies, the conservative Law and Justice Party, said today Schroeder was giving all EU newcomers a lesson in how to put national interest over the wider European community. ''There isn't yet such a thing as a European identity and those events show that,'' the party's candidate for president, Lech Kaczynski, said.
Germany, the third largest contributor to the United Nations, hopes to gain the backing of the five permanent members of the Security Council, along with two-thirds of the 191-nation U N General Assembly, to win a permanent seat.