Piotr Gliński made the statement at a business conference in the southwestern city of Karpacz on Tuesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Appearing in a discussion panel entitled “Europe in the Face of War and Its Consequences,” the deputy prime minister said that six months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe still hasn’t made an “appropriate” response.
“Europe wasn’t prepared for the Russian aggression against a European state,” Gliński said. “It is helpless and unable to respond appropriately.”
The deputy prime minister, who is also Poland’s culture minister, warned: “If we don’t help the Ukrainians, who are fighting not just for Poland or Lithuania, but for Europe, for the entire civilised world, then we’ll be next on the list, and by ‘we’ I also mean the countries of Western Europe.”
Gliński stressed that "packages of sanctions [against Russia] are being adopted, yet we still don't have effective sanctions."
He added that this was because of Europe's previous "economic dependence" on Russia.
‘European unity is essential’
Gliński urged Europe to stand united in the face of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
“Such unity, in the face of present challenges, caused by the war being waged by Putin and the Russian Federation, is essential,” he told the Karpacz Economic Forum.
Gliński’s co-panellists included the Mayor of Ukraine’s western city of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, the Speaker of Lithuania’s Seimas parliament, Viktorija Cmilyte-Nielsen, and the US broadcaster CNN’s international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson.
The Karpacz Economic Forum runs until Thursday.
Tuesday is day 195 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, forum-ekonomiczne.pl, niezalezna.pl