- April 12, 2013
- 239
Siemoniak: The issues concerning the national minorities are important. However, military men have their own cooperation principles.
Poland expects that the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union will strengthen common security and defence policy, stated Poland’s Minister of National Defence Tomasz Siemoniak.
The Minister declared that the altered views of the United States are force to closer cooperation.
“We hope that the Lithuanian Presidency will restore dynamism to the questions connected with common defence which Poland gave during our Presidency of the Council of the European Union at the end of 2011” – said Siemoniak.
“I told Minister Juozas Olekas that we will either try and expedite work connected with common security and defence policy or nothing will change and we will get nowhere again. In this question, the views of Germany, France and the Visegrád Group are coincident” – the Minister stressed.
Some countries, among others, Lithuania and Great Britain, approach the issue of strengthening the policy of security and defence of the European Union with reserve, justifying that it may weaken the transatlantic and NATO bonds.
“We’ve known about those fears, especially of Great Britain, for a long time. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the situation has changed. The USA, the base of NATO, appeal and encourage the European countries to increase attention to defence issues” – Siemoniak stressed.
According to him, Lithuania “in the documents indicates rightly the importance of the relations between NATO and EU”.
The Minister emphasized that misunderstandings between Lithuania and Poland relating to the national minorities, did not influence the cooperation of the countries in terms of the military sphere.
“In all the matters concerning NATO, we have always support ourselves. Obviously, the issues relating to the national minorities make an impact on the atmosphere, the mutual support and the cooperation. That is why I stress their significance, however the defence zone works and functions in accordance with its principles” – Siemoniak stressed.
Tłumaczenie Barbara Rożek w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Barbara Rożek within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.
