Photo. Maksymilian Dura/Defence24.pl
In recent months, we have heard about the Polish authorities signing new „strategic partnerships” and defence treaties. What do these dimensions of cooperation tell us? Which countries does Poland officially share its closest ties with?
On Monday, 12 October, the heads of government of Poland and Norway signed a declaration on a strategic partnership between the Republic of Poland and the Kingdom of Norway. This was not the only document of its kind signed in recent months.
Increasing number of bilateral agreements
On 27 May in London, the Prime Ministers of Poland and the United Kingdom signed a treaty on partnership in the field of security and defence (it is worth noting that on Tuesday, 13 October, the Senate adopted the ratification act for the Treaty without amendments). A year earlier, Poland concluded a defence treaty with France (signed in Nancy). Warsaw’s aspirations in this aspect extend beyond the Old Continent, as evidenced by the recent elevation of the partnership with Japan or the strengthening of relations with Canada (last year’s renewal of the strategic partnership or the letter of intent on defence cooperation signed in September this year).
In view of this, we asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to explain the differences between the various partnerships and to identify the countries with which the Republic maintains particularly good diplomatic relations. The MFA informed us that „within Polish foreign policy, there are various forms of enhanced cooperation, not necessarily systematised into a single coherent, hierarchical system”. It was confirmed that a „strategic partnership” can be considered one of the highest levels of political relations with a given country.
Poland’s strategic partners
In the response sent to us, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs provided a definition of strategic partnership, described as follows: „The establishment of a strategic partnership indicates an above-standard importance of cooperation with a given country from the perspective of Polish foreign policy interests, both in the bilateral dimension and in terms of mutual coordination of actions and engagement on the international stage, particularly regarding current challenges in security and international stability.”
Furthermore, the MFA provided us with a list of countries considered strategic partners of our state. The following countries were mentioned:
- United States of America,
- Canada,
- Nigeria,
- Senegal,
- Ukraine,
- Turkey,
- Azerbaijan,
- People’s Republic of China,
- Republic of Korea,
- Japan,
- India,
- France,
- Sweden,
- United Kingdom,
- Romania.
As we can see, the list is quite extensive and includes countries that, in today’s geopolitical situation, can hardly be called our allies. This only shows that a strategic partnership is not necessarily the same as an „alliance”, which should be understood as something more significant and binding – the highest form of international relations.