POLAND: He is not known for his humour. But Poland's media was rife with speculation yesterday that the country's thin-skinned president, Lech Kaczynski, had pulled out of a top-level meeting in Germany because a German newspaper compared him to a potato.
The president had been due to meet Germany's leader, Angela Merkel, and the French president, Jacques Chirac, on Monday in Weimar. Hours before the meeting, however, Mr Kaczynski said he was unable to make it, due to "stomach pains".
Polish newspapers said he had pulled out because he was incensed by coverage in Die Tageszeitung (Taz), Germany's leading left-wing paper.
Under the headline "Poland's new potato", the paper made fun of Mr Kaczynski's well-known aversion to all things German.
All the president knew of Germany was "the spittoon in the men's toilet at Frankfurt airport", the paper suggested, adding: "It is well known that he boasted for decades never to have extended even a fingernail towards a German politician."
The jibe follows a series of rows between the EU neighbours, most recently over a planned gas pipeline between Germany and Russia, bypassing Poland. On Tuesday the president's office in Warsaw denied the satire had anything to do with his cancellation.
Foreign minister Anna Fotyga said she was shocked by the "attack" on the president and Poland.
As well as demanding an apology from Berlin, she said she was firing her press spokesman, who put the article on the ministry website. Germany's chancellory said: "We don't comment on matters of press freedom."