Commenting on the 19th anniversary of Poland's EU accession, Morawiecki said that "we have returned to the cradle of civilisation."
Paweł Supernak/PAP
Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, argued that strong trans-Atlantic ties were a guarantee of stability and security in Europe.
Morawiecki addressed the nation alongside President Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace on Monday as the two marked the 19th anniversary of Poland joining the EU.
“Therefore all forces in Europe that betray the trans-Atlantic idea do not promote stability, do not promote security and do not properly promote the restoration of peace,” the prime minister said as he referred to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Warning that Ukraine could be the first domino to fall under the Russian onslaught, Morawiecki said that to prevent this “we first of all need a strong trans-Atlantic community.”
He said that if it had not been for the United States and the trans-Atlantic community, “there would be no Ukraine and Russian forces would today be standing at the borders of Podkarpackie and Lubelskie,” as he referred to the two Polish provinces bordering Ukraine.
Morawiecki also used the occasion to stress the importance of nation states in the EU.
He argued that although nation states “can enrich their economic architecture and benefit from that” as Poland did by joining the EU, “it was the decisions of sovereign nation states that… saved millions of jobs” during the coronavirus pandemic.
He also said that the quick decisions made by Poland as well as the United States and the United Kingdom, which had not waited for EU reaction, largely helped Ukraine survive despite Russia’s overwhelming power.
“So the role of nation states is invaluable,” he said.
Commenting on the 19th anniversary of Poland’s EU accession, Morawiecki said that “we have returned to the cradle of civilisation.”
“One can say that, in a sense, a sort of justice was served, a sort of historical justice was served and what had been owed to Poland for a long time was done then,” the prime minister said.
Poland joined the EU on May 1, 2004 following a referendum in which 77.5 percent of people voted in favour of joining the bloc.