Like two neighbors continually squabbling over who's responsible for maintaining their shared fence, Germany and Poland can't help but get on each others' nerves. The two countries are wary of each other at the best of times -- with Germans scared of cheap Polish labor stealing their jobs and Poland's World War II wounds still in the process of healing. But in recent months, a succession of tiffs between the countries has turned down the thermostat on bilateral relations to the point where the temperature is decidedly chilly.

Poland is huffy about a German-backed plan to build a pipeline under the Baltic Sea to transport Russian gas to energy-hungry Germany that would bypass Poland -- and preclude Warsaw from collecting the lucrative carriage fees that would come with a landbased route. Neither are the Poles exactly happy about increasing German interest in the ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II. A recent exhibition in Berlin about the fate of German expellees was greeted with loud protests from Poles, who are clear in their minds about who the real victims of the World War II are. And to cap it all, Polish customs officers earlier this month reportedly fired warning shots at a German boat  suspected of smuggling booze -- not exactly the best of diplomatic initiatives.

Hence it was no surprise that expectations for the Merkel- Kaczynski summit were low, and that anything less than a full-scale falling out would count as a success. Merkel's attempt to calm Polish worries about the Baltic pipeline by promising she would make efforts to integrate Poland into the European energy market was hailed as a rapprochement, even if she again turned down Kaczynski's proposal for a treaty ruling out compensation claims by expellees.

The center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung takes a pragmatic tone, saying the summit was a step in the right direction. The meeting may not have been terribly constructive or symbolic, but "it was certainly by no means bad." The commentator adds: "Relations between the two neighboring countries are far more stable than the knee-jerk political responses on each side would have one believe." Symbols of good intentions are still important, though, the paper writes, and it was smart of Merkel to hold out the olive branch of a European solution to the pipeline dispute . "The chancellor appears to be keeping her promise to take Poland's concerns more seriously than her predecessor Gerhard Schröder did," writes the paper. Kaczynski should be happy with the result, the commentator feels -- after all, he couldn't really have expected to win Merkel over to his proposal for a treaty on the compensation issue, and the meeting did signal a warming of relations. "The bilateral atmosphere has improved for now," the paper concludes. "After all the recent tensions, the visit was worth it for that reason alone."

The Financial Times Deutschland places the blame for the lack of breakthroughs at the summit squarely on Poland. "Kaczynski could easily have avoided a flop if he had laid the groundwork for the visit better," the paper writes. "He couldn't have expected to get a treaty without having his diplomats properly prepare Berlin for the issue in advance." The paper is also critical of the recent replacement of experienced Polish foreign ministry staff with "cronies of the Kaczynskis." "This course damages Poland and ultimately it damages Poland's European partners too. Because in many questions, such as the discussion over the European Union's future strategy in relation to Russia, Poland should be an important and influential voice. But the current government is increasingly showing itself to be unqualified for this role." In essence, the paper is suggesting the Kaczynskis ought to grow up. "Always blaming the others is not sufficient as a diplomatic strategy," it writes.

The conservative Die Welt believes that the extreme tone of Poland's new government is sufficient to let Germany off the hook. "For Germans it is convenient that the Kaczynskis and their reactionary coalition partners are in power," the paper opines. "With their nationalistic and anti-German tone, they position themselves so far away from the harmonious everyday realities of the two countries that it creates the impression their demands do not need to be taken seriously." But it is dangerous to attribute the failure of the summit to Warsaw's extreme position, the paper points out. Relations between the two countries might be superficially more cordial if other political parties were in power, but it wouldn’t change anything. After all, Poland's opposition parties take the same position as the current government on the key issues of the Baltic pipeline and German expellees. "It's just that Jaroslaw Kaczynski expresses himself more directly," the paper writes. Merkel should stand firm, the commentator advises. "She should take her resolve in turning down the compensation treaty proposal as a guideline. Precisely because German-Polish relations work so well on the everyday level, they can survive a bit of straight talking."

On Tuesday, the one thing the conservative and liberal press seem to agree on is that have little love for the Kaczynskis. Since the Kaczynski twins took power last year, writes the left-leaning Berliner Zeitung, Warsaw has been a generator of "resentment, irritation and misunderstandings" in the Polish-German relationship. "In such a political climate, a meeting between Merkel and Kaczynski was as difficult as it was necessary," the paper adds. "At least the tone that was used yesterday is a reason for cautious optimism. It was very clear that the chancellor was making an effort to clear some of the stumbling blocks before Germany takes over the EU presidency in January." The paper feels that the ball is now in Poland's court. "Warsaw's reaction to Merkel's proposal (to include Poland in the EU's energy market) will be the first sign of whether German-Polish relations will turn again in the direction of objectivity and pragmatism, or if Warsaw will continue in its fruitless polemic against the Baltic Sea pipeline."