Andrzej Duda made the remark as he opened a regional policy and business conference in the eastern city of Lublin on Tuesday, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
The annual event, called the Three Seas Local Government Congress and Economic Forum, brings together top policymakers, local and regional officials, business leaders and experts from countries making up the Polish-led Three Seas Initiative, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Three Seas Initiative aims to boost infrastructure, energy and business ties among 12 countries between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas: Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, according to officials.
Participants at the Three Seas conference in Poland's Lublin included representatives from the European Union, the United States and Germany, which are the group's strategic partners, and regional partners from Central and Eastern Europe, organisers said.
‘Ensuring national security is our most important mission’
Opening the two-day conference, the Polish president said on Tuesday that the Three Seas Congress “has become a very important platform for the exchange of experiences and for discussions about regional cooperation in our part of Europe.”
Duda noted that the event was first held in 2021, “in the difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic,” but added that this year’s conference was taking place “perhaps in even more difficult circumstances.”
The president told the audience in Lublin: “We are just 100 kilometres from Poland’s border with Ukraine … which 15 months ago fell victim to brutal Russian aggression. It’s one of the reasons security is now the main topic of practically all our meetings.”
Duda stated: “We are discussing security everywhere. Because all of us, democratically elected politicians, have one deep belief, namely that the most important aim of our actions should be to ensure security, peace and the greatest possible prosperity for our fellow citizens.”
He added: “Without a doubt, this is our most important mission, and it is also what is most expected from us by the people who voted for us.”
Focus on 'stepping up cross-border cooperation'
The president told the conference that “stepping up cross-border cooperation in the Three Seas region is one of the priorities that we should always keep in mind.”
He said that “over the past three decades, the countries of the region have grown 1.5 percentage points faster than the EU’s biggest economy, Germany.”
Duda added that the Three Seas region’s share in the EU’s GDP “grew from just 15.2 percent in 2004 to 19.1 percent in 2018,” while “Poland remained the leader in economic growth, expanding at an average rate of over 5 percent.”
'Our countries will soon overtake' Western Europe
The president said that the Three Seas Initiative was designed “to further accelerate our growth,” so that “most of our countries will soon overtake many Western European economies and the standard of living will exceed Western European levels.”
He added that the Three Seas area "seems more resilient in the face of crises than Western Europe."
Duda said he was pleased that the Three Seas region was "attracting interest from the world’s biggest economies and investors, who want to channel their resources into the region."
The president also said he was happy that this year’s Three Seas Congress would see the launch of a Network of Three Seas Universities and a Network of Three Seas Regions, the PAP news agency reported.
Tuesday is day 447 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP, congress.lubelskie.pl/en