2018-10-12 13:30 update: 2018-10-15, 15:19
Photo PAP/Leszek Szymański
Polish President Andrzej Duda has said the EU lacks solidarity and mutual understanding, as evidenced by the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline project being implemented despite being against the interests of some member states.
The president was speaking at a press conference to mark the conclusion of a two-day Visegrad Group summit in Slovakia. The Visegrad Group (V4) is comprised of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Duda stated at the press conference that the V4 countries would very much like the EU "to be a real community, i.e. a community in which - as President (of Slovakia - PAP) Andrej Kiska has said - there is solidarity, there is mutual understanding, there is an attempt to balance common interests, but there is also understanding of fears and needs."
"And that is something which - it needs to be clearly stated and we said it today - the EU very much lacks," the Polish president asserted.
In this context, Duda recalled the example of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. He noted that the V4 countries' protests to the project result from an awareness that "it is not a project of a business nature, but a project of a political nature, which is a project that is actually harmful to the EU."
That harm - Duda elaborated - comes not only from the threat to the energy security of our part of Europe and Ukraine but also from the fact that its consequence will be the domination of one supplier on the whole EU market.
"We believe that from the point of view of the whole of the EU's interests it is unfavourable and we talk about it firmly," the president declared. "At the same time it transpires that it is a voice calling in the wilderness and the investment is going ahead against the interests of some EU countries. Is that really the activity of a community? I guess everyone who looks at it will say no, a community should not function like that." (PAP)
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