On Thursday, March 24, the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the two-day session of the Council of the European Union will take place in Brussel.

On Wednesday, March 23, President Andrzej Duda met with the government and the highest military commanders during a meeting at the National Security Bureau. They talked about the situation in Ukraine and Polish proposals that will be presented at the extraordinary NATO summit and the EU summit.

President Duda emphasized “We need to modify the strategic concept of the North Atlantic Alliance for the coming years, taking into account what is happening in Ukraine and Belarus. The current situation requires a permanent, forward NATO defense presence on the eastern flank. Changing the nature of this presence, increasing the number of soldiers and strengthening the defense infrastructure will be our demands at the extraordinary NATO summit,” he added.

Andrzej Duda also pointed out that the 1997 pact on mutual relations between NATO and Russia is no longer in force.

He stressed that “with its actions, Russia has shown that this act is being dissolved and NATO should cancel this fictional document once and for all due to Russia’s fault”.

During the European Union summit, Poland will call for tougher sanctions against Moscow, including a break with the import of Russian energy resources.

The first day of the summit will be devoted to increasing aid to Ukraine, including providing it with funds for post-war reconstruction. European leaders will also talk about extending sanctions against Russia. Poland demands cutting all Russian banks off from the SWIFT system, closing EU ports to Russian operators and stopping oil, coal and gas import from Russia.

On the second day, the European Council will discuss security and defense issues on the basis of the declaration adopted at the Versailles summit, which takes into account the new security situation in Europe.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki intends to emphasize the need to further tighten the strategic partnership between the EU and NATO, and to draw attention to the need to increase defense spending by all EU countries. Probably, the head of the Polish government will also propose that these expenses should be excluded from the EU budget rules.

US President Joe Biden will participate in both the NATO summit and the European Union summit.

Adrian Andrzejewski