Slovak President Welcomes Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski on Official Visit to Slovakia

The President of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski, with his wife Anna, arrived for a two-day official visit to Slovakia on Tuesday, 21 June 2010. The Polish President was welcomed by President Ivan Gašparovič and his wife Silvia with the highest honours in the courtyard of the Presidential Palace in Bratislava.

The two Presidents discussed primarily bilateral relations but their talks also briefly touched upon the issues of Visegrad and European cooperation. “It was my honour to have the opportunity today to officially welcome Mr Komorowski with his wife on his first ever official visit to our country since his appointment as the President of the Republic of Poland,” the Slovak President told a news conference afterwards.

Ivan Gašparovič described their mutual talks as very interesting. The talks primarily concentrated on the intensification of mutual relations, especially in the area of economic, trade and foreign policies, and Slovakia’s involvement in them. “I am confident that our relations, including from the historical point of view, are relations of two brotherly and friendly nations,” President Gašparovič said. Bronislaw Komorowski described Polish-Slovak relations as very good. In his opinion, the cooperation at the European, Visegrad as well as bilateral level is flawless.

According to the Slovak President, there are no serious outstanding issues on which the two countries would not be able to find a consensus. Slovakia wishes to further develop cooperation in those areas where there still is some untapped potential - economy, trade and culture. “We are happy to see the bilateral trade exchange between our countries growing. Last year, we enjoyed a record-breaking turnover in the amount of 5.5 billion euro,” Ivan Gašparovič said after the talks.

Both Presidents agreed that the issue of road and railway connections in the Slovak-Polish cross-border regions still remained to be addressed. The Polish President reminded the wish of our northern neighbour to have the “Via Carpathia” road corridor opened as soon as possible, connecting Poland with the south of Europe, through the territory of the Slovak Republic. “It surely would be good if we connected Bratislava with Warsaw but it will not be possible without resolving the issue of completing the Bielsko-Biala – Žilina motorway section,” President Komorowski noted. “If we want to complete the north-south link between Poland and Slovakia, we should step up our efforts to complete cross-border sections,” President Ivan Gašparovič said with respect to an unfinished D3 motorway section (Čadca – Bielsko-Biala). At the same time, he said he believed that the Government would do everything it could in order to complete the missing section as soon as possible. The two Presidents also agreed that it was equally “necessary to build a north-south gas transport network interconnection”.

In addition to bilateral topics, the Presidents also discussed integration of new countries into the EU. “As far as the issues of EU enlargement and our joint NATO membership are concerned, Slovakia and Poland share very similar opinions,” the Slovak President said. In the context of the last week’s official visit by Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych to Bratislava, the Polish President emphasised it was necessary that Ukraine converged to the European Union. “The Eastern Partnership is an important instrument for East European countries such as Ukraine, Moldova and others,” he added. Poland is currently preparing to take the rotating six-month EU presidency over from Hungary; one of the priorities of Poland’s EU presidency should be, according to Komorowski, the issue of economic stability in Europe and the efforts to consolidate the position of the single European currency - euro. Poland supports the EU’s efforts to save the Greek economy," according to Komorowski, “ but reform measures have to be taken.”

Security will also be among the top priorities of the Poland’s EU presidency. “I appreciate your initiative to set up a joint Visegrad battle group,” the Poland President told his Slovak host. Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič presented this initiative at the summit of the heads of state of the Visegrad Group member countries held last year in Karlovy Vary.