BERLIN/WARSAW: German Chancellor Angela Merkel took power last year vowing to mend frayed ties with Poland, but relations have become so fraught since that hopes for a rapprochement have all but vanished.

German officials and analysts say that after months of failed attempts to engage Poland and its twin leaders Jaroslaw and Lech Kaczynski, Berlin has shifted from a policy of active diplomacy to one best described as damage control.

The change reflects both a deep frustration in Germany at the direction of policy in Poland on issues like the death penalty and the European constitution, but also a view that the Kaczynski government is simply not prepared to nurture the relationship for now.

“I think Angela Merkel has been disappointed on a number of fronts,” said Gesine Schwan, the government’s coordinator for Polish relations. “In the long run I am optimistic. But for now one simply can’t rule out more turbulence and negative twists.”

Merkel, who grew up near the Polish border in the former communist east, came into office critical of her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder’s cosy ties with Russia, which she argued alienated new EU members like Poland.

In its coalition programme, Merkel’s government vowed to inject ‘new quality and intensity’ into relations with Poland and intensify work within the ‘Weimar Triangle’ — a loose forum to promote cooperation between France, Germany and Poland.

Merkel sent another signal within weeks of taking power. At an EU summit in Brussels last December, she helped seal an eleventh hour deal on the bloc’s budget by agreeing to give Poland 100 million euros ($130 million) out of German coffers.

Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz, then Polish prime minister, hailed Merkel’s gesture and predicted a revival of the alliance between Warsaw, Berlin and Paris that had suffered from differences over the Iraq war.

Instead, relations have steadily deteriorated.

In April, Polish Defence Minister Radek Sikorski compared a German-Russian gas pipeline deal to the pre-World War Two pact between Hitler and Stalin that led to a carve-up of Poland.

Then in early July, President Lech Kaczynski abruptly pulled out of a Weimar summit with Merkel and French President Jacques Chirac — a move some Polish politicians and media linked to his fury over a German newspaper article likening him to a potato.

Calls from Warsaw for a formal German apology for the article left officials in Berlin baffled. Two months later, there is still no new date for the summit.

More recently, an exhibition in Berlin which focuses on the fate of displaced people after the war has become a source of tension, condemned in Poland as an attempt by Germans to portray themselves as victims of a conflict they started.

Anna Wolff-Poweska, a professor and head of the Institute for Western Affairs in Poznan, says these rows reflect the Kaczynskis’ deep suspicion of Germany, rooted in history.

“Instead of trying to build new relations, the government is focused on the past,” she said. “The team running Poland is presenting Germany as a threat.”

German attempts to work with Warsaw have stalled. When Marcinkiewicz and Merkel appeared headed for a compromise on the contentious pipeline, the Kaczynskis balked.—Reuters