Glider
Captain
My understanding of the process is that you don't formally ask the originating country (Germany in this case) for permission as if they say no there is a certain amount of political embarrassment. What happens is the you first make an enquiry to get a feel for the likely response. Then you make the formal requestAs evidenced by the Polish Prime Minister's own words it is now apparent that they have not asked permission. They were quite happy to blame Germany for saying No but it seems that they never actually bothered to ask in the first place. Hence my comments about playing games...
Here Poland made the enquiry, Germany heavily indicated that the reply would be 'No'. Poland and others have said that Germany are getting in the way. Germany have defended themselves by saying that they haven't had a formal request. Which of course is technically true, as you don't make a formal request unless you believe the response is going to be 'Yes'.
Now Poland seem to be calling the German's bluff and are saying they may do it anyway, and Germany is saying that they will not say no, or yes, just will not get in their way.
So far so good, but Poland (and Ukraine) will no doubt want to know if Germany will supply spares as you cannot really go to war on a maybe, as a Leopard II is a very expensive Pillbox.
I am now going to go and lie down as my brain hurts, and hope someone can understand the above.
Don't you love politics