Merkel and Sarkozy to meet with Poland at revived summit

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is to travel to Poland in February, upgrading an annual three-way meeting, which also includes France, to summit level, her spokesman disclosed Friday, DPA reported.

Until 2006, Poland's leadership had direct access once a year to the leaders of France and Germany at the "Weimar Triangle" meeting.

Poland's relations with the western Europeans became strained during the presidency of the late Lech Kaczynski, and talks were left to more junior officials. Poland's president, Bronislaw Komorowski, asked Merkel this month to restore the meeting to top level.

Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said both Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy would attend the February 2, 2011 meeting in Poland at Komorowski's urging.

The Weimar Triangle series began as a meeting of foreign ministers in 1991 at Weimar, Germany, evolved into a summit and was then downgraded again.

The last full summit was on December 5, 2006 with Merkel, then French president Jacques Chirac and Kaczynski attending. Kaczynski was killed in April this year in an aircraft crash in Russia.

Komorowski then took over the presidency and has rebuilt closer relations with the western EU nations.