Mother's Milk for the Kaczynskis
Nude Merkel Montage Raises ... Eyebrows
By Charles Hawley
It's not the first time the Polish weekly Wprost has gotten in trouble in Germany. This week, the cover depicts Chancellor Angela Merkel breast-feeding the Kaczynski twins. But it could have been worse, the editor-in-chief points out. At least they used a 21-year-old model.
AP
"Europe's Step-Mother:" Polish magazine Wprostdoes it again.
It's not exactly how one expects to see German Chancellor Angela Merkel: The broad, friendly smile seems completely at odds with her open blouse, two bare breasts spilling out. On each breast, one of Poland's governing Kaczynski twins is affixed -- Prime Minister Jaroslaw is suckling on the left, President Lech has attached himself to the right. One of them is holding up the "victory" sign right in Merkel's cleavage.
The image is on the cover of this week's Wprost, a conservative Polish newsmagazine that has not shied away from firing barbs at Germany in the past. The headline reads: "Europe's Step-Mother." As current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, Merkel, the magazine seems to be saying, is treating the rest of Europe like her step-children. And during last week's EU summit in Brussels, the article inside makes clear, she has been particularly condescending to the Poles. The magazine writes of Germany's "post-colonial reflexes" and says that six decades after the end of World War II, "the Germans still aren't able to treat Poles like partners."
"The cover's message," Stanislaw Janecki, editor-in-chief of Wprost, told SPIEGEL ONLINE, "is that Germany, especially Ms. Merkel, was trying to treat Poles and the Polish leaders as small children completely unable to act on their own and somehow dependent on Germany…. There is the impression that Germany, being more powerful, wants to dominate Poland and that the Kaczynski brothers want to stand up to this domination."
Relationship 'Clearly Not Working'
German reactions to the cover photograph have been predictably shrill. News agency dpa called the image "drastic." Many papers, including the Cologne daily Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger, wrote of the Chancellor being "mocked" and "ridiculed." Tabloid Bild dove into its Rolodex and quotes a number of German politicians angrily denouncing the image's "tastelessness."
Yet despite the bawdiness of the cover, Janecki points out that it isn't just critical of Merkel. After all, the image makes it rather clear who the children are. "It is also critical of the Kaczynskis because the relationship between these politicians has become abnormal. It has become threatened by history and by national points of view. There are many factors, but the relationship is clearly not working."
Janecki also says that, among normal Poles and Germans, the relationship between the two countries is a positive one. Merkel, he claims, is generally well-liked in Poland and Germany is admired for helping the Poles become members of the European Union. Wprost -- which means "Straight On" in Polish -- even went out of its way to not make the cover still more offensive, Janecki says.
Merkel's Head with a 21-Year-Old Body
"We imagined it to be a little funny," Janecki says. "The stepmother is often more sexy and more friendly that the real mother is. The body is of a young, 21-year-old model. I would say it is quite a nice body, and we didn't want to say anything bad about Ms. Merkel." He says they got the image from a model agency the magazine works with and they were looking for somebody "who was not so thin but someone who also has a good body."
The Wprost cover is just the most recent salvo fired in
an ongoing media war between the two countries. Janecki's weekly has attracted unwanted attention for its covers on more than one occasion, the most offensive being a 2003 cover showing then Chancellor Gerhard Schröder being ridden dominatrix style by Erika Steinbach -- head of a group representing Germans booted out of Poland following World War II -- clad in Nazi garb. More recently, Germany's Die Tageszeitung has printed images of the Kaczynskis with potatoes as heads. And DER SPIEGEL recently switched around the Wprost cover by depicting Merkel being ridden by the Polish leaders.
But reaction in the Polish press this week to the EU summit, which saw Merkel pushing through an
11th hour compromise deal after threatening to isolate Poland, has been far from universally critical of Germany. Daily Dziennik criticized Prime Minister Jaroslaw's pre-summit suggestion that Poland would have more influence in the EU had
6 million Poles not been killed in World War II. And the newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza said that the Kaczynskis had "crossed the line of European good taste."
REFORMING THE EU
The agreement reached at the summit is to establish the framework for the EU Intergovernmental Conference which will transform Saturday's agreement into a treaty. Later this year, EU leaders will meet once again to sign the treaty. It will take effect in 2009, in time for EU elections, and it will replace the European Constitution that was rejected in the referendums held in France and the Netherlands in 2005. The following aspects of the EU will be reformed:
The new European Council voting procedure will be based on the "double majority" system. In response to Polish pressure, the rule will not be introduced in 2009, but only in 2014. Moreover, member countries that so desire will be able to still invoke the voting procedures established by the 2001 Treaty of Nice, which is currently in effect, as late as 2017. This would allow smaller countries or blocs of countries to defer disagreeable decisions even if they have no blocking minority (the Ioannina Compromise). This too is a concession to Poland, which will thereby be able to retain its current influence within the EU for an additional 10 years. The "double majority" rule entails that the votes of EU countries will no longer be "weighted" in the way they have until now. Instead, a resolution is considered to have passed successfully when 55 percent of the member countries, representing at least 65 percent of the EU's population, agree to it.
The European Council (made up of heads of state or government from EU member states) is to be directed by a specially appointed president for two-and-a-half years at a time. The presidency of the regular ministerial council, on the other hand, will continue to rotate among EU member states every six months.
Countries such as Great Britain can withdraw from EU resolutions on issues such such as closer cooperation in the areas of justice and policing. Member countries can also stray from EU resolutions with regard to social policy. If no agreement is reached within a period of four months, those states that so desire can take the lead -- a so-called "two-speed" Europe.
As before, foreign and security policy in the EU will continue to be regulated differently from other areas. The European Commission and the European Parliament will not be given expanded responsibilities in the area of foreign policy. The EU foreign minister, who operates in agreement with individual governments, will be called the "High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy," as requested by Britain. He is also the vice president of the European Commission. Until now, the EU's foreign policy was the province of both the European Commission and the European Council. The new position eliminates this overlap. The new top diplomat will also be in charge of a new European diplomatic service.
The EU's bureaucratic apparatus is being shrunk. The number of EU commissioners will sink from 27 at present to 15 in 2014. Currently, each member state provides one commissioner. This will no longer be the case.
National parliaments can appeal planned EU laws within a period of eight weeks, if they believe that that those laws violate their national jurisdiction. The EU budget will henceforth be fixed by both the European Parliament and the European Council.
For the first time, the EU treaty officially allows countries to leave the EU -- something that was already possible unofficially, as shown by the case of Greenland which elected to withdraw from the European Economic Community after receiving autonomy in 1979. Countries that wish to join the EU must respect its values and commit to promoting them. This formulation is a response to demands from France and the Netherlands for stricter membership regulations.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights is no longer part of the EU treaty. But the treaty will refer to it and will declare it as binding. An exception will be made for Britain, which has no constitution and is concerned the Charter of Fundamental Rights could effectively become a constitution imposed from outside.
The EU symbols once mentioned in the European Constitution -- the flag and the hymn -- will not feature in the revised treaty. But they will effectively continue to exist. The word "constitution" has also been dropped. The EU also does not officially pass "laws," but only guidelines.
On Tuesday, leaders from both sides of the border were doing their best to play down the fracas. The Chancellery in Berlin has refused to comment on the naked Merkel image, instead saying: "We have a great interest in doing our part to create a close and friendly relationship." Speaking of the EU summit, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski said in an interview with
Dziennik that "we weren't acting against the Germans. It wasn't our intention to weaken their position."
Despite his magazine's cover, Janecki also thinks things have gotten a little bit out of hand between the two neighbors lately. "The relationship between Poland and Germany is like that between the Germans and the Dutch, or the Germans and the French. If there are problems, they are problems of the media and the politicians."
Still, the fact that the Wprost cover story was also co-written by
Mariusz Muszynski, who is the Germany advisor to the Polish Foreign Ministry on Warsaw-Berlin relation, did little to defuse a tense situation.
With reporting by Marta Glowacka
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2007
All Rights Reserved
Reproduction only allowed with the permission of SPIEGELnet GmbH
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