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Poland in for no-show in Malta

PR dla Zagranicy
Alicja Baczyńska 10.11.2015 18:00
Neither the Polish president nor prime minister will be attending the EU’s immigration summit on Thursday, deputy foreign minister Rafał Trzaskowski has announced.
Valletta, Malta. Photo: Flickr.com/Andrea SantoniValletta, Malta. Photo: Flickr.com/Andrea Santoni

The EU gathering coincides with the first session of the Sejm, the Lower House of the Polish Parliament, where the Civic Platform-run outgoing government will officially hand over power to the new cabinet of conservative Law and Justice (PiS).

Trzaskowski claims that the Polish seat will remain empty after President Andrzej Duda discarded all possible solutions to the conundrum proposed by the Prime Minister’s Chancellery.

“Even today [chief of the Chancellery] Minister Jacek Cichocki spoke to the head of the Presidential Office, but postponing the first session of the Sejm was not an option,” Trzaskowski reported the president’s aides as saying.

“Even shifting the parliamentary sitting to an earlier hour, which would allow [a Polish top official] to make it to the summit, was out of the question,” he explained.

The Foreign Ministry is, thus, to request another country to represent Poland at the bloc’s key summit on immigration, where member states and African partners will discuss ways of tackling the largest inflow of refugees into Europe since World War II.

The Presidential Chancellery’s decision marks the end of a long-running spat between the two largest players on the political arena over the Polish leadership’s representation in the Maltese capital, Valletta.

On 5 November, the Presidential Office announced the date for the first session of the newly elected Parliament, two days after the head of the European Council, Donald Tusk, declared that another emergency summit on immigration would be held on 12 November. (aba/di/rk)

Source: IAR

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