by Our Foreign Desk

RIGHT-WING Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski challenged negative assessments of political life in his country yesterday, suggesting that the shape of Poland’s democracy is better than some foreign commentators suggest.

He invited German politicians to visit and check after summoning Berlin’s ambassador to Warsaw, Rolf Nikel, to receive a protest over “anti-Polish” statements by some of them.

Mr Nikel said that Polish-German relations are a “treasure that should be protected.”

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said later that “Germans and Poles are neighbours, partners, friends and we’ve never been so close in our history.

“This is precisely what we want to preserve, continue and where possible deepen.”

Mr Waszczykowski said there was a “problem in communicating with some German politicians,” inviting his German counterpart Frank Walter Steinmeier and other politicians to visit and see that the “shape of Poland’s democracy is not as bad as may seem from far away.”

European Parliament president Martin Schulz likened Poland’s current politics on Sunday to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

German Christian Democrat parliamentary group leader Volker Kauder spoke recently in favour of sanctions against Poland if the country continues, in his view, to ignore the principles of the rule of law.

The comments were in reaction to new legislation that Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party adopted on a constitutional court and on state media.

The European Commission is to debate Poland’s rule of law tomorrow, which could eventually result in Warsaw losing its EU voting rights on matters that concern the 28-nation bloc.