The move is intended as a symbolic gesture to mark the 35th anniversary of the 1991 Polish‑German Treaty on Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation. It follows Germany’s December 2025 return of medieval Polish documents and other artifacts. However, the gesture does not resolve one of the most sensitive issues in bilateral ties: payments for the last surviving Polish victims of the Nazi German occupation. Prime Minister Donald Tusk pressed Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin in December, warning that time was running out for roughly 50,000 survivors. Berlin maintains that the broader reparations issue is legally and politically settled.