“You forgot Poland”: criticism as US, UK, France and Germany meet alone to discuss Ukraine

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Western leaders have faced criticism after the US, UK, France and Germany met to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine without inviting any eastern frontline states. Many commentators have suggested in particular that Poland – Ukraine’s neighbour and NATO’s biggest relative defence spender – should have been invited.

Among the critics was the head of Poland’s National Security Bureau (BBN), an agency that operates on behalf of President Andrzej Duda. Meanwhile, the former president of Estonia, Toomas Ilves, claimed to have been told that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz personally blocked Poland from attending the meeting.

On Friday, American President Joe Biden met in Berlin with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Scholz. Their talks focused in particular on how to support Ukraine in its defence against Russia’s war. They also discussed the situation in the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the four countries’ respective defence secretaries met at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels to “discuss our shared commitment to support Ukraine and work toward stability in the Middle East, and reaffirm our resolve to uphold peace and security in Europe and beyond”, wrote Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin.

However, the decision to meet as a quartet – rather than in a wider format – quickly drew criticism from experts.

“[The] quad format really doesn’t reflect European defence reality anymore,” wrote Constanze Stelzenmüller, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE). “Poland at the very least should have been there.”

“The most depressing element in all this is that it probably did not even cross the minds of the leaders attending this meeting that countries like Poland should be joining them at that table for a discussion about the future of Ukraine,” commented Jonathan Eyal, associate director of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

A number of social media users jokingly referred to a famous quote from 2004 when, during a presidential debate, George W. Bush told John Kerry: “You forgot Poland.”

Poland has been among Ukraine’s closest allies since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, providing humanitarian, military and diplomatic support. As Ukraine’s neighbour, it has also become the main hub for transport of equipment and people in and out of the country.

Meanwhile, Poland has also embarked on a military procurement spree that has seen its defence budget rise to 4.12% of GDP, the highest level in NATO. This year, the Polish military became the third largest in NATO and the alliance’s largest in Europe.

However, Warsaw has regularly been at odds with Berlin on a range of issues, including the level of support that should be given to Ukraine, cutting reliance on Russian energy, migration policy, and the question of compensation Poland believes it is still owed by Germany for World War Two.

Those tensions were particularly strong under the former national-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government but have also continued to some extent under the more liberal, pro-EU coalition led by Donald Tusk that took office last December.

Commenting on Friday’s meeting in Berlin, Ilves, who served as president of Estonia from 2006 to 2016, wrote that he had been “told Sholz personally blocked Polish participation”.

In Poland itself, Jacek Siewiera, who as head of the BBN is the most senior security advisor to President Duda, also commented on the meeting, sharing an image of the four leaders who attended and a map of Europe.

He wrote that holding a meeting of three western European states to discuss a war taking place on the east of the continent while omitting representatives of Poland, the Baltic states and Nordic countries shows that “someone seriously misunderstood the changes that have taken place on the continent since the beginning of 2022”.

Poland’s former ambassador to Ukraine, Jan Piekło, likewise wrote that “Poland, Romania, Nordic and Baltic states…understand much better the Russian threat…[and] are heavily involved in helping Ukraine. We need [a] different format [for such meeting]”.

Media associated with Poland’s opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party also took the opportunity to mock Tusk, noting that he has often bragged about how his government has helped Poland return to the top table of international diplomacy.

At the time of publication, no representative of the Polish government had commented on Poland’s absence from Friday’s meeting.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: Carlos Fyfe/The White House

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.