Polish President Andrzej Duda paid a working visit to Berlin on 12 December. Topics of discussion with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier included security, the humanitarian crisis threatening Ukraine, a potential wave of refugees, and bilateral relations.

“Germany has been a great European country, a great European power, as well as our great neighbour, with which Poland is bound by the strongest threads resulting not only from a common border, but also from huge economic ties, common interests and important events in our common history, sometimes difficult, but in fact significant one, and over the last 30 years certainly a good history,” said Andrzej Duda at a joint press conference after the talks with the German President.

The Polish President conveyed his thanks to the German authorities for the decision to send Patriot missiles to Poland and he assured that the Poles had accepted that as an important alliance gesture within NATO and a very important neighbourly gesture in relations between Poland and Germany. “Strengthening Poland’s anti-aircraft protection is of great importance for building our security”, he noted.

As President Duda stressed, Poland and Germany share the same opinion on support for Ukraine.

“It is necessary to support Ukraine with all our strength, it is necessary to support Ukraine militarily’, said Andrzej Duda, and recalled that ‘we ourselves have sent, as far as our capabilities are concerned, a huge military support to Ukraine, estimated at about 2 billion dollars’.

Following his meeting with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on the eve of the 41st anniversary of the imposition of martial law in Poland, Andrzej Duda visited the Pilecki Institute in Berlin, where he met with the staff of the institute and volunteers from Ukraine and Belarus, with whom he discussed their ongoing activities in support of their home countries.

Adrian Andrzejewski