WARSAW, Poland (AP) – New German Chancellor Olaf Scholz comes to Warsaw on Sunday afternoon for talks with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on migration, energy, EU issues and tensions in the east from the border of the block.

This is one of Scholz’s first visits after he was sworn in with his coalition cabinet on Wednesday.

Poland is a vocal opponent of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline which is to carry Russian gas directly to Germany, claiming that it makes Europe dependent on deliveries from Russia.

The Warsaw government is also embroiled in an escalating dispute with the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, which is withholding pandemic stimulus funds from Poland, saying government policies are eroding it. judicial independence.

Scholz and Morawiecki are also due to discuss the complex bilateral relations under the new German government. Good neighborly ties are further eclipsed by WWII, especially under Poland’s current nationalist government.

The new German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, was in Warsaw on Friday. She expressed Germany’s support for Poland which sealed its eastern border to migrants who are apparently encouraged by the Belarusian government to seek illegal passage. She also called for humanitarian treatment of migrants stranded at the border.

On Friday, Scholz met French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and later EU and NATO officials in Brussels.

Scholz, a center-left politician, became Germany’s ninth chancellor after World War II, ushering in a new era for the EU’s most populous nation and largest economy after the 16-year term by Angela Merkel.

His government is made up of a coalition of his center-left social democrats, green environmentalists and pro-business free democrats.