Schroeder To Appoint Special Advisor on Poland
The German government plans to appoint a high- profile special adviser for relations with Poland, a report said Tuesday.
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is set to appoint Gesine Schwan, who is president of the Viadrina University in Frankfurt an der Oder, eastern Germany, to coordinate government policies aimed at Poland, the Financial Times Deutschland reported.
A government spokesman declined to comment on the report.
Schwan, who was defeated this year after being nominated by Schroeder as Germany's president, plans to stay on as head of the university on the Polish border after taking her new job in the chancellery, said the report.
German-Polish ties have been troubled over the past years with major differences over a series of key issues.
Poland, for example, took part in the Iraq war which Berlin strongly opposed.
Relations have also been strained over legal moves by ethnic Germans expelled from Poland after World War II to recover property following Poland's admittance to the European Union (EU) in May.
The Polish parliament replied in September with a non-binding resolution demanding war reparations from Germany.
"Poland's EU membership has ignited a legal timebomb," Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper warned.
In 1945, about 15 million ethnic Germans were expelled from the now mainly Polish territories of East Prussia, Silesia and Pommerania as well as other central and east European countries such as the present-day Czech Republic.
Polish ties with Germany were further damaged last December when Poland and Spain blocked an EU deal on a new constitution.