ABSTRACT

Nevertheless, having closely followed East Central Europe’s fluctuating fortunes ever since the “Prague Spring”, it has been very pleasing to see a

new, dynamic and confident Poland punching so far above its weight as the co-designer and co-constructor of a new “post-Western Europe”. Poland has

not only revelled in being the only EU country to avoid economic recession in 2009. It has also begun to fulfil Willy Brandt’s great wish that “reconciliation of Poles and Germans will someday have the same historical importance as the

friendship between Germany and France” (Brandt 1972, 272).