Meeting of presidiums of the parliaments of Poland and the Czech Republic

August 30, 2018
2:04 pm

The joint meeting of the representatives of the Presidium of the Sejm and the Czech Chamber of Deputies in Jurata provided an opportunity to touch upon the following issues: parliamentary cooperation, Polish food on the Czech market, development of road, railroad, water and air transport or regional cooperation in the context of the European Union and the Visegrad Group.

- Our parliamentary contacts are one of the pillars of creating foreign policy, especially in the conditions of European integration, not only in bilateral relations, but also in multilateral structures, especially in the Visegrad Group format. The time has come to fundamentally strengthen the role of national parliaments in the political system of the European Union", noted Marek Kuchciński, Speaker of the Sejm.

The Speaker stressed that cooperation in the field of transport goes beyond the bilateral dimension and becomes a factor of strategic importance for the expanding regional cooperation. He also drew attention to the development of cooperation in the field of modern road and railroad connections. He recalled that both our countries are gradually building corridors: S3-D11, which will ensure the fastest connection of the Czech Republic with the Baltic Sea ports, and A1-D1, which already ensures a smooth flow of people and goods through the Moravian Gate.

As regards railroad connections, the backbone is the E65 line connecting Katowice with Ostrava, as part of the TEN-T "Baltic-Adriatic" Core Network Corridor. The Marshal emphasized the necessity of close coordination of activities, which is particularly important in the context of accelerating works on the High Speed Railway (HSR) project, which will connect the countries of the Visegrad Group in terms of transport to an extent never before seen in the history of our European region. He also expressed support for the revitalization of waterways, such as the Oder-Elbe-Danube Canal, as this issue gains a new dimension in the context of development and use of the LNG terminal in Swinoujscie and construction of Nord Stream 2.

The interlocutors also drew attention to the black PR of Polish food in the Czech Republic, emphasizing that competitiveness should be built on the principle of positive campaign of own products, and not disqualifying foreign ones, in this case Polish.

The meeting in Jurata was another meeting between the Speaker of the Sejm and the Speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies Vondráček. The previous ones took place within the framework of the V4, at the EP, at the Summit of Central and Eastern European Parliaments, in a bilateral format, an official visit in 2017 in Prague, before the start of the Spring Session of the NATO ZP in Warsaw in May this year. The Heads of Parliaments emphasized the lack of conflicts of interest in the Visegrad Group and the growing strength of a common voice in Europe, translating into a beneficial direction for our work.

The meeting was chaired by the Speaker of the Sejm Marek Kuchciński and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies of the Czech Republic Radek Vondráček. On the Polish side, the meeting was attended by Vice-Marshals Barbara Dolniak, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, Beata Mazurek, Ryszard Terlecki and Stanisław Tyszka.