Two-day consultations between the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania Andrzej Duda and Gitanas Nausėda are underway in Jurata on the Hel Peninsula. The talks are devoted to the situation in the region.
The Presidents discussed the situation in Ukraine and Belarus, energy policy, Polish-Lithuanian security relations and the current state of European Union sanctions against Russia.
“This is a format of consultations that have already taken place in January this year during a meeting between President Andrzej Duda and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenski”, said Jakub Kumoch, head of the Office of International Policy at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. He added that in a similar format, the President had received the UN Secretary-General António Guterres or the previous President of Slovakia Andrej Kiska.
The President’s Office recalls that over the past 12 months Andrzej Duda and Gitanas Nausėda have met more than a dozen times including visiting Kyiv together twice. The first visit took place a day before the Russian attack on Ukraine – on 23 February 2022; the second time the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania visited Kyiv was together with the Presidents of Estonia and Latvia on 13 April 2022.
According to the head of the Office of International Policy at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland, Poland and Lithuania have reached a level of relations where their presidents see each other many times a year and consult on much of their activities. “Andrzej Duda and Gitanas Nauseda have played some of the main roles in mobilising Western support for Ukraine”, Jakub Kumoch added.
Cooperation has intensified within the B3 + Poland group, which, in addition to our country, includes the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
“Under the presidency of Andrzej Duda and Gitanas Nausėda, tremendous progress has also been made in the Polish-Lithuanian dialogue, symbolised by the new Lithuanian law on the spelling of surnames”, states Jakub Kumoch.
Adrian Andrzejewski