You could say that Poland is trying to have it both ways, in wanting to exercise the clout of a big country and to claim the privileges of a developing one. But it would be hard not to be moved by the balancing act that the new reform-minded Government is trying to pull off in its foreign policy, courting allies with calculation, and yet inspired overall by an intense desire to be part of any Western alliance that's going.

“Poland, as a result of Yalta, was behind the Iron Curtain for 45 years against our will,” said Radoslaw Sikorski, the Polish Foreign Minister, yesterday on his first trip to Britain in that role. “We do need a little bit more time to adjust.”

That comment referred to the farm support that Poland hopes the European Union will continue to give it, but it could be taken to express its deep commitment to that alliance, and its simultaneous desire for special treatment.

Poland's allies greeted with relief the arrival of Donald Tusk, the Prime Minister, in November, after the prickliness and introversion of the Kaczynski twins (although Lech Kaczynski is still President, he cannot shape policy). But although the change has simplified relations with the EU, where the Kaczynskis veered from indifference to antagonism, it has complicated those with the US, where they gave unequivocal support.

Sikorski made clear yesterday that Poland's consent to hosting ten US missile defence interceptors is not yet a done deal. “We recognise that the proposed system would benefit the [Nato] alliance as a whole, and therefore Poland,” he said. “But the risk it would also create seems to be falling disproportionately on Poland.” Russia has attacked the plans, and Poland fears that if it accepts the bases, it will incur a share of its hostility. This year Poland (which has also sent troops to support the US in Iraq and Afghanistan) has been challenging Washington to reward it - for instance, by helping to modernise its armed forces.

Sikorski maintained that “we treat Russia the way one would deal with every other important country”, listing ways in which trade and diplomatic contact had improved. He thought it “a good departure” that Dmitri Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's anointed successor as President, was the first not to have “roots in the security or party structures”. In today's Luxembourg meeting to try to thrash out a new strategic treaty between the EU and Russia, Poland will no longer block progress, as it has done for years, now that Russia has lifted a ban on Polish meat imports.

Sikorski also argued that Nato had reached a “good compromise” at this month's Bucharest summit, even though Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, blocked the US call for Ukraine and Georgia to be admitted, partly because of protests from Moscow. Ukraine and Georgia had both received a firm promise of membership only a few years after expressing interest, whereas Poland waited seven years, Sikorski said.

He hopes that Britain will be sympathetic to Poland's desire to see Ukraine in the union, despite signs of Europeans' fatigue with the costs and strains of expansion. On this issue, Poland acts like one of the EU's biggest countries, in trying to shape the union's identity, but on on others, such as the environment, it acts as one of the poorer ones. “We will need fair treatment, sensible timescales,” Sikorski said, to clean up power plants that are 95 per cent dependent on coal.

He regards the immigration wave to Britain as “very good for Poland”, adding “I hope they will go back - they will change Poland.” More than two thirds of those who voted from Britain — about 30,000 — voted for Tusk, his team says.

Tony Blair may be one beneficiary of that sense of close alliance with Britain. Asked whether Poland would support Blair as president of Europe, Sikorski laughed and said: “Now he is a Catholic.” Poland wouldn't want to harm Blair's chances by discussing them too soon, he said. From this new Government with its mixture of idealism and calculation, that is perhaps as close to an endorsement as you will get.

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