Ahead of the visit, Duda’s top foreign policy aide, Jakub Kumoch, told public broadcaster Polish Radio that Warsaw was keen to work with Vienna “especially in building the institutions of the Three Seas Initiative, but also in existing infrastructure projects, where Austria is a significant part of the equation.”
He added that Austria was an "important regional partner" for Poland.
The Polish-led Three Seas Initiative aims to boost infrastructure, energy and business ties among 12 countries between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas.
The initiative brings together Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia.
Before noon the Austrian presidential couple met with the Polish head of state and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda at the presidential palace in Warsaw.
The day's schedule also included a one-on-one meeting between Duda and Van der Bellen, talks between government officials from the two countries, and a news conference of the two presidents.
At 5 p.m., Duda and Van der Bellen were scheduled to attend a Polish-Austrian business forum held in Warsaw as part of the annual Congress 590 conference, Polish Radio's IAR news agency reported.
The Austrian president was also scheduled to meet with Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and the Speakers of both chambers of the Polish parliament, the lower house's Elżbieta Witek and the upper house's Tomasz Grodzki, according to the Polish presidential office.
On Monday, Van der Bellen visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in the southern Polish city of Oświęcim, where he toured an exhibition about Austrian victims as well as perpetrators of Nazi terror, the IAR news agency reported.
(gs-pm)
Source: IAR, PAP
