WARSAW / WASHINGTON – For hundreds of years, Poland suffered from an overbearing Germany that trampled on the rights of the Polish nation, occupied the country, and, at times, worked to extinguish the Polish nation-state entirely. No wonder that there is a residue of skepticism and caution in Poland when it comes to relations with [...]

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BRATISLAVA, Slovakia – The entry of the four Central European countries — Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia (known also as the Visegrad 4 group, or V-4) — into the European Union on May 1,  2004, was the triumphant end to a long journey.  It was a time for celebration among the quartet of post-communist [...]

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BRUSSELS – At five in the morning on Friday, a senior EU official commented that the summit outcome could be the first step toward Britain’s leaving the EU. After Prime Minister David Cameron’s veto of a new treaty embracing all 27 member states, aiming to achieve what German Chancellor Angela Merkel calls a “stability union,” [...]

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WARSAW — On October 9, Poles returned their government to power in a parliamentary election for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Poland’s course over the next four years will again be defined by the centrist Civic Platform (PO) of Prime Minister Donald Tusk, most likely in a coalition government with [...]

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WARSAW — Poland took over the rotating EU presidency last Friday. Despite the presidency’s diminished role under the Lisbon Treaty, both Polish politicians and European leaders have high hopes for Poland’s six-month stint at the helm of the EU—Herman van Rompuy, president of the European Council, even called it an “historic event.” At a time [...]

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WARSAW — Barack Obama’s visit to Poland on May 27-28 was markedly different from earlier U.S. presidential visits to the country.  There was no major policy speech, no overarching agenda item to drive the headlines, and only small groups of onlookers in the streets.  But the visit—which elicited a mixed response from the Polish media—was [...]

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WASHINGTON–A few months ago, I was asked to brief my old boss, former Secretary of U.S. Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on developments in Europe since he left office in December 2006.  While it is impossible to write succinctly about everything that has happened since he left office, with President Barack Obama in Europe this week and [...]

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MEMPHIS, Tennessee — The human and civil rights drama unfolding in Belarus in the aftermath of the electoral fraud perpetrated by the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko should be a teaching moment.  It shows that hopes of bringing Belarus closer to the West through a policy of carefully calibrated carrots and sticks were largely an illusion.  [...]

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WASHINGTON—Bronislaw Komorowski’s victory in last Sunday’s presidential elections in Poland gives the Warsaw government a rare window of opportunity to advance a packed domestic reform and foreign policy agenda. With a fellow member of the centrist Civic Platform as the head of state, Prime Minister Donald Tusk can finally move to act, without the daily [...]

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