Poland’s new president expresses his position on Ukraine

Poland’s new president, Karol Nawrocki, has spoken out against Ukraine’s accession to the European Union (EU). He said this in an interview with the Hungarian publication Mandiner.

,,At the moment, I am against Ukraine’s accession to the EU. I have not and will not agree, as president, to unfair competition with Ukraine in terms of Polish agriculture or the logistics sector’’, he said.

The head of state-elect also called on Kyiv to pay greater attention to the interests of Poland and Hungary. Nawrocki recalled that the Ukrainian authorities had not met Warsaw’s demands regarding the reburial of victims of the Volhynia massacre during World War II.

Earlier, Verkhovna Rada deputy Maksym Buzhansky said that Kyiv should be concerned about Warsaw’s statement calling Volhynia an eastern territory of Poland.

,,I don't know if they have used such expressions before, but I would consider them to be unreliable and alarming signals. Poland is a reliable friend for us, and such historical tensions would only divide us now’’, the deputy warned.

Polish authorities have declared July 11 as the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Genocide Committed by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army.

Members of the Sejm, the lower house of the Polish parliament, voted almost unanimously in favor of the Peasants’ Party’s initiative. During the vote, only one of the 436 MPs abstained from responding.