Andrzej Duda made the comment at a news conference in Bucharest, Romania, on Wednesday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The Polish president held a joint news conference with his Romanian counterpart Klaus Iohannis, Lithuania’s Gitanas Nausėda, and Croatia’s Andrej Plenković after the summit of the presidents of Three Seas Initiative countries in the Romanian capital.
Duda told reporters: “The success of this summit is the accession of Greece to the Three Seas Initiative. Also the fact that Moldova and Ukraine, two countries on the path to joining the EU, have joined the Three Seas Initiative as associate participating states.”
The get-together focused on efforts to strengthen regional ties and security amid Russia's war in Ukraine, according to officials.
Poland’s president said that the Bucharest summit was “so important” because the Three Seas club “has demonstrated its value, especially recently.”
Duda added: “We’ve seen how important are all the infrastructural projects that have been completed, are underway or will be delivered under the Three Seas Initiative.”
The Polish president said: “The war in Ukraine, the need to deliver supplies to Ukraine and to export products from Ukraine, so that Ukraine can function fairly normally in this extremely difficult situation, have demonstrated the importance of infrastructure connectivity in Central Europe and the cooperation between our countries.”
Duda noted that “between 2018 and 2021, the Three Seas countries spent over EUR 80 billion on infrastructure projects alone, and if we add spending on research and development, the figure rises to EUR 117 billion.”
The Polish president said that the Three Seas club’s main projects included gas interconnectors, the Via Carpathia transnational highway network, which officials say is designed to connect Europe’s north and south, from Lithuania to Greece, the Via Baltica road project, and rail projects, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
Ukraine’s Zelensky urges EU not to restrict export of Ukrainian grain
Earlier in the day, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Three Seas summit via video link from Kyiv, the Ukrainska Pravda website reported.
Zelensky urged the EU not to block his country’s grain exports.
He said: “Ukraine is against further restrictions on the export of our grain, because we need these products to be exported, because we need funds... It is about survival in the conditions of Russian terror.”
Ukraine’s president later wrote on social media: “At the Three Seas Summit, I addressed Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Moldova, and the EU Commission. Europe—all of us—proved capable of historic acts of solidarity. I thank all of our partners for that. But why, when Ukrainian ports are burning almost every night after Russian strikes, do we also have to worry that our land logistics will stop?”
He stressed: “Ukraine is strongly against any further restrictions on the export of our grain. Everyone loses when politics in Europe goes against our common commitments and values. Unity must prevail.”
An EU ban on the import of Ukrainian grain to Ukraine’s five EU neighbours, Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, expires on September 15, Ukrainska Pravda noted.
The five countries have called for the embargo to be extended until the end of the year, according to officials.
The Polish-led Three Seas Initiative aims to boost infrastructure, energy and business ties among the countries between the Baltic, Black and Adriatic Seas.
The initiative brings together Poland, Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and now Greece.
The initiative’s key partners include the European Union and the United States.
Thursday is day 561 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, launching the largest military campaign in Europe since World War II.
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Source: IAR, PAP, Ukrainska Pravda