Posted on 02/16/2006 11:46:27 AM PST by lizol
Kaczynski for concerted strategy of V4
WARSAW, Feb 15 (CTK) - The countries of the Visegrad Four can achieve more, in the EU in particular, if they all pull together, Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who will arrive on a two-day visit to the Czech Republic on Thursday, told CTK and Czech Radio today.
The cooperation of the V4, which comprises the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, will be among the issues on the agenda of the talks.
"We are greatly interested in the best relations with the Czech Republic. There are no objective reasons for us to argue," Kaczynski said, adding that this was one of the reasons of why Prague is the destination of one of his first foreign visits.
Since in office, Kaczynski has visited the Vatican, Italy and the US. He was scheduled to arrive to the Czech Republic in late January, but due to a crumbled building in Katowice, which claimed dozens of fatalities, he postponed the trip.
Previously, Kaczynski was in Prague in 1991, accompanying his predecessor, President Lech Walesa, who took part in the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.
"It was one of the great events of my life-time," Kaczynski said, adding that now he wanted to discuss joint interests such as the post-war deportation of Germans.
Two years ago, Kaczynski had the damage in Warsaw during World War Two quantified when he was the mayor of Warsaw. He was reacting to the deported Germans' demands that they be returned their confiscated property. "The quantification of war-time damage was a sort of defence. I would not change anything in this now," Kaczynski said.
Kaczynski said that he would like to discuss the European constitution in Prague. He said that President Vaclav Klaus's views were close to him.
"I know that Klaus is being called a man sceptical of the EU. I would like to hear his position," Kaczynski said, adding that he was still a proponent of Poland's EU membership.
"For us, it is better to be inside rather than outside the game because certainly this is a game," Kaczynski said.
Although Poland advocates a joint energy policy of the EU, speaks about a joint EU policy to eastern countries and is for a joint security policy, the current government and Kaczynski himself reject the European constitution.
"I do not think that there is a chance of its approval," Kaczynski said.
From the Polish viewpoint, energy safety is chiefly connected with problematic relations with Russia. Poland depends on Russian gas and oil, but the relations between Warsaw and Moscow are not rather chilly. Poland resented the agreement on the construction of a gas pipeline from Russia to Germany across the Baltic, which will bypass it.
Some critics say that when advocating its own interests, Poland makes the most of the V4. "Poland is the largest of the four and even has a greater population than the rest taken together. However, I have not seen any case when it would have used the V4 solely to advocate its own interests," Kaczynski said, rejecting the allegation.
"I do not think that this could basically influence Polish- Czech relations," Kaczynski said about the controversial privatisation deal of the Czech Unipetrol company, bought by the Polish concern PKN Orlen, in which corruption suspicions surfaced.
For a second I thought this was about the Unabomber..My bad.
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