Kyriakos Mitsotakis had a meeting with the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk. “I have very important political as well as personal reasons to be happy every time I visit Poland. As you know, my wife is also from Poland. He is also of Polish origin. Therefore, when I come to Poland, I feel that I am coming to a country with strong family ties, but also on a political level,” he said.
“Many years have passed since the last visit of a Greek prime minister to Poland and I am glad that we had the opportunity today to discuss our own relationship, but also the common European challenges we face, with a particular emphasis on Ukraine,” he added.
“We are now in the third year of this unprovoked illegal attack by Russia against Ukraine.
The impact is felt of course here in Poland. I had the opportunity to repeat to Prime Minister Tusk, but also to the president who was in Vilnius yesterday, within the framework of the Three Seas Initiative, that we will continue our strong support to Ukraine, financially as well as militarily for as long as it takes” he said.
Tusk: New alliances after the European elections
“Our cooperation gives me hope and makes me optimistic about Europe’s safe future,” said Donald Tusk in the context of his joint statements with Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Warsaw.
“We have many common experiences and I wanted to note that for many reasons, a closeness of views, a closeness of mindsets, our cooperation with Prime Minister Mitsotakis is always excellent. We can rely on each other and this is of great importance, given the importance of Greece, but also Poland within the European Union,” said Mr. Tusk.
He added that “we will try to have a positive influence on the formation of European strategies regarding security, migration. And I want to mention that it is something that we have discussed at length today that we will exchange practical experiences in terms of effective border protection against irregular immigration. Both countries have strong reasons to deal with illegal immigration. Of course the problems differ due to the different geographical location and neighbors, but our positions are close to Prime Minister Mitsotakis. Europe, the member states, must effectively protect their territories and control their borders, ensuring that their migration policy is not chaotic or uncontrolled. So thank you very much, dear Kyriakos, for the exchange of views on a safer Europe both on its southern and eastern borders,” he said according to ERT.
At another point he emphasized that “our positions are similar, even though we have different traditions, different customs.
But in our foreign policy we have come very close. We have supported Ukraine since the Russian invasion and then we have found a common vocabulary, a common language about European policy on Ukraine. I am convinced that thanks to our cooperation, the European policy on this issue will be essential.
We will also cooperate, as we have been doing for years, for the development of new political structures after the European elections. So far the results are excellent and I am convinced that thanks to the fact that we are a very good cooperation duo, it will be easy for us after the European elections, after the new European Parliament, to create new alliances, new structures. And there our views are close and we will be able to help each other”.
“It was very gratifying to hear the Prime Minister’s warm words about helping the firefighters last summer in Greece and it is something we will repeat. We will also welcome the Minister of the Interior, he will participate in our working lunch and we will discuss the details of how we can help Greece during the fire fighting summer season. Once again, thank you very much Kyriakos. Our cooperation gives me hope and makes me optimistic about Europe’s safe future.
I want this to be a slogan, I want it to be a pragmatic, non-ideological practical approach to security issues in the broadest sense. So we have to be more efficient because I rely to a large extent on this Greek-Polish cooperation, whether through the Three Seas initiative or on a bilateral level, we will always find a way to agree and always cooperate”.
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