Objectives and Outcomes of the 1991 German-Polish Treaty on Good Neighbourhood and Friendly Cooperation in Light of the Intra-European Dispute on the 2015–2018 Migration Crisis

The German-Polish Neighbourhood Treaty of 1991 has served its purposes well, contributing to building trust between neighbours and to stabilising the European continent after the end of Communism. While most of the treaty’s goals have been either achieved bilaterally or moved to the European level, the treaty remains an important framework for multi-level cooperation and further common policy-making. However, the severe crises the EU has been undergoing over the last decade—above all the currency and migration crises—threaten to undermine German-Polish (and other) relations by having revealed deep underlying differences between western and eastern member states concerning nationhood, political legitimacy and the purpose of European integration. So far, the bilateral German-Polish level has had a mitigating influence on the multilateral conflict at the EU level; however, it remains to be seen which of those contexts will prevail.