Poland is both pro-American and pro-European - Polish PM in Hamburg
Poland is both pro-American and pro-European, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated during the Future of Transatlantic Relations (FOTAR) international conference held in Hamburg on Saturday.
During the event, the Polish PM, along with Germany's Federal Minister of Finance and Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz, took the floor in the discussion entitled "A European Perspective for the Future of Transatlantic Relations."
The head of the Polish government assessed that the reasons for the deterioration of transatlantic relations after the election of Donald Trump as US president lie "on both sides of the Atlantic."
"From the Polish point of view, this is a very bad phenomenon, Morawiecki said. "We are convinced that we should have an active part in the repair of these relations," he argued.
The Polish official stressed that "there are not many countries like Poland, which are very pro-American, pro-Transatlantic and, at the same time, pro-European."
According to him, one of the reasons for the current tensions in transatlantic relations is that "sometimes we lose sight of the main message."
"I often hear complaints about US trade policy (...) Lack of customs barriers is important for trade to develop and when I hear that the United States is against such trade and China is in favour of such trade, I smile and do not believe this is ultimately the case," Morawiecki said.
He admitted that the language used by Donald Trump is often "very direct, very rough in contrast to the language of the President of China." "However, we should not underestimate the real barriers to trade between Europe and China," the PM stressed.
He expressed the conviction that the United States is not an adversary of Europe. "Of course not," Morawiecki argued. "We would like to have a peaceful relationship with all countries, including Russia and China, but we see problems on the part of China and Russia, rather than the United States," Morawiecki said.
The conference has been organised by the Federal Chancellor Helmut Schmidt Foundation and the Europa-Kolleg Hamburg – Institute for European Integration at the University of Hamburg.
During the meeting, which was inaugurated on Friday, politicians, academic experts and entrepreneurs discussed current challenges in transatlantic relations, in areas such as trade, security and environmental protection, as well as the future of relations between the United States and the European Union. (PAP)
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