POLAND - GERMANY: SOFT POWER TOOLS IN FOREIGN POLICY (Polska - Niemcy: narzedzia miekkiej sily w polityce zagranicznej)

The article presents Polish-German relations following the treaty on good neighbors and friendly cooperation from the perspective of a growing importance of soft power tools used by both countries in their mutual relations. In the last twenty years, due to changes in the international milieu, Germany and Poland developed the traditional tools of cultural diplomacy and introduced new concepts of public diplomacy. The new tools employed by Germany involve foreign image policy which is a manifestation of the economization of this country's foreign policy. The significance of Poland as the target country of German cultural diplomacy is currently smaller than at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. In Poland, promotional activities connected with economic transformation have led to the formulation of the conception of public diplomacy, with Germany as one of the target countries. The article refers to the notion of soft power in the interpretation proposed by J. Nye.