Andrzej Adamczyk made the statement at an international high-level meeting on strategic infrastructure projects in Kraków, southern Poland, on Monday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The two-day get-together, which began on Sunday, featured senior transport officials from Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and the European Union’s executive Commission.
Poland’s infrastructure minister told reporters that the Kraków meeting followed on from multilateral talks held in the southeastern Polish city of Rzeszów in March.
Adamczyk said: “We’d like to discuss important issues such as the suitability of transport infrastructure for military needs. Poland’s location at the EU’s outer border and next to a country where a war is going on, provides much experience from which we can draw conclusions about the road, rail and air transport network.”
The Polish infrastructure minister added that the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine “highlighted Europe’s pressing need for a cohesive and resilient transport network.”
He declared that "the countries of eastern Europe treat it as our special duty to ensure the high performance of transport routes” in the region.
Adamczyk noted that Poland was working with Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia on national sections of the Via Carpathia transnational highway network, which officials say is designed to connect Europe’s north and south, from Lithuania to Greece.
Another major project is the parallel rail route, the Rail Carpathia, he said.
The Polish infrastructure minister stated: “We are taking all steps to strengthen and streamline, and to increase the capacity of, transport links to and from Ukraine and along the north-south axis.”
Adamczyk said that at the end of the Kraków meeting, transport ministers from Poland, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia would sign a joint declaration, calling on the EU “to increase funding for the development of transport infrastructure, including the infrastructure designed for the purposes of military mobility.”
He added: “Our work to strengthen transport infrastructure will provide the basis for an even more secure Central and Eastern Europe and represent an investment in the collective security of the entire European Union.”
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
Monday is day 558 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, gov.pl
Click on the audio player above for a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.