Poland’s ruling party PiS has again struck anti-German tones. In an election spot, Chancellor Scholz receives a staged rebuff. Starring: party leader Kaczynski and a fictitious ambassador.
In Poland, an anti-German election campaign advert from the national-conservative ruling party PiS is causing a stir. In the clip, Chancellor Olaf Scholz gets a rebuff: PiS chairman Jaroslaw Kaczynski refuses a phone call with the SPD politician and simply hangs up.
The video, which the party published on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter, shows the interior of the German embassy in Warsaw to the music of Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.” A fictional ambassador picks up the phone and calls Kaczynski. In bumpy Polish with a strong German accent, the supposed diplomat explains that he wants to put a conversation with the Chancellor through to Kaczynski. Scholz wants to clarify that the retirement age in Poland will be raised again – as it was during the time of Kaczynski’s political opponent, the former head of government Donald Tusk.
Kaczynski says in the video: “Tusk is gone and these habits are over.” Then he ends the conversation. The PiS has long attacked Tusk with the insinuation that he was acting on behalf of Germany.
German embassy is holding back
Background to the bizarre video: Parallel to the parliamentary elections on October 15th, the PiS government wants to let voters vote in a referendum on, among other things, the retirement age. This was increased under Tusk’s liberal-conservative government, but the PiS, which has been in power since 2015, reversed this.
Tusk is chairman of Poland’s largest opposition party, the liberal-conservative Civic Platform (PO). After his government in Poland, he was President of the EU Council until 2019. He is now back in Polish domestic politics. With a victory in the parliamentary elections, Tusk wants to oust the PiS government from power.
The German embassy left open whether they had been informed about the commercial in advance. She does not interfere in the current political debate in Poland, the press office wrote to the AP news agency. “As partners in the center of Europe, Germany and Poland share responsibility for good neighborly relations and for positive cross-border and European cooperation,” she added.