Nord Stream: The narrative of a new Molotov–Ribbentrop pact?

Photo (CC) en.kremlin.ru

It can also be used as the legitimating argument for the conduct of a policy: hence the repeated claims for war reparations from Germany by members of the PiS party. Finally, the traumatic memory of historical events can be brought to the surface by a symbolic policy. This was the consequence of the Polish authorities’ plan, revealed (and later abandoned) last summer, to include illustrations of historical Polish landmarks on Polish passports that are now within its neighbours’ borders –for instance, the Polish military cemetery in Lviv, Ukraine and the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, Lithuania. Such appearances of history within public debate often become the focus of intense media coverage.

Return to 2006

On April 30th 2006 during a conference in Brussels on transatlantic security, Radosław Sikorski, then the Polish minister of defence, described the Nord Stream pipeline project as a “new Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact”. The analogy was triggered by German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s refusal to back out of the pipeline project that was agreed upon with Gazprom (the large Russian natural gas company) by the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The historical similarity initially encompassed more than the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. As reported by Germany’s public international broadcaster Deutsche Welle on May 1st 2006: “Poland has a particular sensitivity to corridors and deals above our head. That was the Locarno tradition; that was the Molotov-Ribbentrop tradition. That was the 20th century. We don’t want any repetition of that.” At that time, Sikorski was the defence minister under the PiS government of Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and Jarosław Kaczyński. In February 2007 he resigned from his post in protest to Poland’s engagement in the Afghanistan war. He later joined the Civic Platform (PO) government as foreign minister from 2007 to 2014.

The Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact, signed on August 23rd 1939 on behalf of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, was a treaty of non-aggression that led to the de facto fourth partition of the Polish state (following the partitions of 1772, 1793, and 1795). The 1939 partition was foreseen in the pact’s secret protocol. By using this historical reference in his Brussels speech, Sikorski implied continuity between (1) the three partitions of Poland by Prussia, the Austrian Empire and Tsarist Russia in the late 18th century, (2) the division of Poland by Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia in 1939, and (3) what was considered to be the geopolitical consequences of an energy infrastructure project between the contemporary German Federal Republic and the Russian Federation. In essence, Sikorski referred to the historical argument of a German-Russian threat against Polish sovereignty in order to discredit the validity of the Nord Stream pipeline project.

Are such references expressions of Polish fear of German-Russian alliances inherent to the national collective memory? Are we observing a memory game that is typical of Polish political life? Or is the use of history merely a rhetorical technique used by a select number of politicians? These questions shed light on the issue of the “weight” (influence) and “choice” (conscious use) of history in political debates, essential concepts within the field of memory studies developed by French political scientist Marie-Claire Lavabre in 1991. Examining the Polish debate on the first Nord Stream pipeline project reveals that the historical comparison was initially employed by Polish right-wing politicians. Later, they kept it alive using it against Sikorski after his appointment as minister for foreign affairs in the subsequent PO government.

A recycled metaphor

The Nord Stream pipeline project was first described as a new Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact in the lower house of the Polish Parliament by Gertruda Szumska, a member of the nationalist Catholic party Dom Ojczysty (Ancestral Home). In her speech on July 5th 2005 Szumska denounced Nord Stream as a “Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis,” implying that it represented geopolitical interests which contradicted the solidarity that EU membership should guarantee in foreign affairs and defence. The Nord Stream, in her view, defied economic logic and was only conceived as a tool to harm – “deliberately and flagrantly”– Polish sovereignty. Such agreements were “made above Poles’ heads”, as Szumska phrased it, and ostensibly echoed the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.

Her comparison did not receive coverage in the international media: speaking in Polish to a national audience in the closed environment of the Polish parliament did not attract much attention. On the other hand, when the comparison was used by the defence minister in front of an international audience of high-ranking officials in Brussels, it was reported by leading international outlets such as The Guardian and Deutsche Welle. The context of growing tension in EU-Russian relations gave it an added degree of potency. In January 2006 Russia cut its gas supply to Ukraine in the middle of a very cold winter, undermining not only Ukraine’s energy supply but also the energy markets of Central and Eastern European countries. For the EU, this dispute catalysed thinking about what it could do to secure its energy supply.

In this tense geopolitical landscape, Sikorski’s misuse of the past was negatively received in Berlin and Brussels, and including those who agreed that the Nord Stream was detrimental to the energy security of the EU and its Central and Eastern members. Hence, the Latvian Defence Minister Gediminas Kirkilas considered Sikorski’s metaphor “too strong,” but thought it reflected the “essence of the problem”. On the other hand, the European Commission’s chief spokesman Johannes Laitenberger said, “the language employed was certainly neither helpful nor proportionate to the problem.” Ruprecht Polenz, head of the German Bundestag’s foreign policy committee, described the comparison as “absurd” and “harmful for German-Polish relations.” At the time Polish-German relations had already suffered a deeply historically-loaded crisis, linked to German civil society groups claiming remedies and compensation for the displacement of populations after the Second World War.

Memory game strategies

At an international level, how can we explain this use of the past? One hypothesis is that Sikorski was deliberately aiming for broad media coverage of his criticism of the Nord Stream project as an existential threat to Polish sovereignty. In this case, the result was achieved, but the coverage was negative and Sikorski’s gambit became a recurring anecdote in scholarly and journalistic writings. One could also argue that Sikorski used the historical argument in an attempt to evoke empathy on the part of his European (notably German) partners. However, he did not convince his European partners that the Nord Stream would threaten Polish (and, by extension, European) sovereignty. On the contrary, it was the misuse of the past that was denounced as inappropriate.

This attempt to trigger historical solidarity failed because the European partners did not share the collective memory on which the metaphor’s persuasive power relied. As the French political scientist Valérie Barbara Rosoux explains, collective memory is triggered only when a specific formulation of the past by an official echoes representations of the same past of the individuals comprising the target audience. In the absence of a shared European collective memory, the image of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact does not summon the same existential threat for everyone. Not only did Sikorski fail to gain the support of the European Commission and German politicians in preventing a feared fifth partition of Poland that would damage European sovereignty, but his rhetorical gambit also had a long-lasting detrimental impact on his credibility on the issue, and to some extends, on the credibility of all Polish politicians when it comes to debating European energy policy.

The third hypothesis is that Sikorski wanted to make gains on the domestic political scene, thanks to the media coverage his controversial comments received. It is indeed common for politicians to use the past in foreign affairs, given that collective memory is mainly enshrined at the national level. As theorised by the French sociologist Georges Mink, politicians use their nation’s history and official memory on the international stage in order to present themselves as patriots at home and to secure their geopolitical position internationally. When formulated on the international stage, official memory – understood as the sum of the representations of the past promoted by the state – is directed not only towards the international community, but towards the assumed collective memory of the national electorate.

Debates in the Sejm

Despite the international backlash that was caused, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact comparison remained a vivid rhetorical device within the national debate in the Sejm, Poland’s lower chamber of parliament. It served two aims: to reassert again and again the argument that the pipeline project poses an existential threat to Polish sovereignty and to discredit Sikorski as a politician.

Analysing the Nord Stream debates that occurred between 2004 and 2014 in the Sejm, it is obvious that the argument remained a marginal one within the wide set of arguments raised to discredit the pipeline project. Over the space of ten years the historical argument was only brought up 11 times. However, the use of history in Polish debates on European energy policy reveals some interesting patterns. Eight of the 11 times the issue was raised, a speaker played on the negative memory. This suggests that the historical reference recalls a traumatic moment in the Polish collective memory, such as the partitions of Poland in the late 18th century, the 1815 Congress of Vienna, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the Second World War and the Cold War. Another historical parallel compares the economic practices of contemporary Germany with the relations of the former Soviet Union to its satellite states.

Some evocations of the past, to be sure, are extremely precise, which makes them difficult to understand. The most telling example occurred on March 29th 2012, while the offshore lines were already built but not yet in operation. The MP Ludwik Dorn referred to a very specific historical concept: the “Kanonenbootdiplomatie”. It refers to the usage of political-military pressure against an enemy instead of direct confrontation. He associated this military technique, employed by late 19th century colonial imperial powers, with the Russian military doctrine that would drive the Nord Stream pipeline project. By doing so, Dorn highlighted the new strategic importance of the Gotland Island through which the pipeline route goes. More broadly, he sought to raise awareness of military exercises simulating terrorist attacks on the infrastructure, conducted by the Russian Federation along the pipeline’s route.

All the aforementioned mobilisations of a traumatic past echo moments of the traumatic collective memory of the disappearance of the Polish state as a sovereign entity. Describing something as an existential threat is the first step of what the Copenhagen School of security studies theorised as a “securitisation” of the public debate. If a threat is acknowledged by the target audience as existential and bearing substantial political risks, this could then lead to the formulation and implementation of extraordinary emergency measures. In this way the securitisation move is successful.

If we consider references to the past as attempts to securitise the debate on the Nord Stream pipeline, we may conclude that they were unsuccessful. Sikorski’s attempt failed because the international audience didn’t consider the threat to be existential neither for the EU, nor for Poland. All attempts failed at home, if not because the threat was not acknowledged as existential, at least because the argument did not eventually lead to extraordinary emergency measures.

Enduring echoes

Another pattern of referring to the past during parliament debates is evoking Sikorski’s 2006 analogy in order to discredit him. Indeed, after moving to the Civic Platform (PO) party in 2007, Sikorski had to defend himself against PiS politicians for the controversial remarks he made. For example, on 8th April 2010 Karol Karski (a PiS MP) criticised the PO government’s track record on improving energy supply. While challenging the real added value of the newly signed gas contract with Qatar and the government’s efforts to prevent the finalisation of the Nord Stream pipeline, he made the following comment: “Germany and Russia are building a pipeline through the Baltic Sea, which Minister Sikorski compared to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact when he was still a member of the PiS government. Today, being a member of the Tusk government, he doesn’t have the same scruples.”

Sikorski, then the foreign minister of the PO government, would reply to such attacks by arguing he had already corrected his words that were widely distorted in the media. He responded with the following: “All I said as a member of Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s government was that Poland is particularly sensitive to alliances made above our heads, after which I proceeded to give a couple of examples of such alliances. Included in this category are the partitions, Locarno, Rapallo, and, naturally, the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact.”

On April 8th 2010 he went on to say, “I don’t think any Pole would find anything controversial about my statement, which is why I’m so surprised that its abbreviation has been cited by the press in a controversy-ridden climate.” In Sikorski’s view, the historical comparison is self-explanatory and therefore uncontroversial for the Polish people. In other words, it is part of the Polish collective memory.

A partisan political tool

Still, the use of history in this very debate is peculiar to Poland’s right-wing political landscape. Before April 2006, referring to the past was made by members of the party Dom Ojczysty and PiS. After Sikorski’s gambit, all references to the past are from PiS members, except one from the far-right nationalist conservative party Liga Polskich Rodzin (League of Polish Families). Noteworthy in all this is Ryszard Zbrzyzny, a member of the social-democrat leftish party Sojusz Lewicy Demokratycznej (Democratic Left Alliance), who in 2011 made a reference to Sikorski’s comments with the purpose of condemning such a misuse of the past in Polish relations with its European partners. It appears that while playing on the Polish collective memory, the use of the past is a political strategy limited to a specific part of the Polish political spectrum. Still, it is important to recall the French scholar Christian Schülke’s work on evocations of the past in German-Polish relations. Using the past, according to Schülke, is never pure instrumentalisation, but also shows specific aspects of how the collective memory is expressed by political elites.

Nevertheless, when it comes to European energy policy, the historical argument was part of a securitisation strategy meant to prevent the pipeline from being built. History-based arguments disappeared from the national debate on Nord Stream after the two offshore lines went into operation in 2012. In 2013, the debate on the creation of two subsequent pipelines (what is called Nord Stream 2) raised the same technical objections that were already used against the first two lines. In 2014 the debates were dominated by geopolitical considerations that echoed the growing Russian threat following the annexation of the Crimean peninsula and the war in eastern Ukraine. On top of the technical counter-arguments, the rejection of Nord Stream 2 by the Polish government and its affiliated parliamentary members shifted away from the national historical narrative and since 2015 has focused more on the idea of a breach of European solidarity from the West towards Central and Eastern Europe. If Nord Stream 1 was tagged as the repetition of a secular German-Russian, anti-Polish geopolitical orientation, Nord Stream 2 is depicted as proof that European solidarity, which was promised to the former members of the communist bloc that joined the European Union, was just hot air.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop comparison could not convince Poland’s European partners of the threat posed by Nord Stream 1. The argument that it would threaten European solidarity, on the contrary, is a narrative that talks to Poland’s European partners and successfully mobilises them. It is moreover efficient because the geopolitical context, since the beginning of the talks on the construction of Nord Stream 2, requires EU members to find a single voice in shaping their position towards Russia.

Francis Masson was an academic assistant at the College of Europe in Natolin at the time of preparation of this article.

Germany, Nord Stream, Poland, politics, Russia