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20 Feb. () –
The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, met her Polish counterpart, Mateusz Morawiecki, on Monday to express their joint support for Kiev on a trip to Poland that is expected to serve as a stopover before her expected visit to Ukraine.
“Poland is the moral and material border of the West: a nation that we Europeans must thank for what it is doing for Ukraine,” Meloni said from Warsaw at a press conference with Morawiecki, adding that Italy has also supported Kiev from the beginning, as reported by the ADNKronos news agency.
On the other hand, Meloni has ruled that “together” they work for a Europe “of subsidiarity”. “We have very similar positions on the issues of competitiveness and immigration”, she said, reiterating that it is necessary for Europe to be a “political giant and not a bureaucratic giant”.
“We cannot allow the entry into Europe to be decided by gangs of traffickers and we cannot confuse migration and refugees. We are looking for answers and a serious Europe must address the problems pragmatically,” he indicated, as reported by the RAI chain.
For his part, his Polish counterpart stressed that “immigrants are also used as an instrument of war.” The President of Belarus, Alexander “Lukashenko attacked Poland even before Putin attacked Ukraine and he did it with artificial pressure on migration,” he explained.
Morawiecki stressed that in order to return to “normality” and counteract the economic and energy crisis, it is necessary to “defeat Russia”. In this sense, he has stressed that both Poland and Italy have “identical” opinions on the matter.
The Polish prime minister has also explained that both countries have agreed to deliver more weapons to kyiv “so that peace can be achieved as soon as possible.” “We feel a similar responsibility,” he added, according to the PAP news agency.
Meloni’s trip to Warsaw also precedes a visit to kyiv which, according to RAI, will take place this Tuesday. The Italian prime minister wants to make clear her government’s commitment to Ukraine after controversial statements by some of her partners, especially the leader of Forza Italia, Silvio Berlusconi.
However, Zelenski has acknowledged that in his future conversation with Meloni he will address this matter and has ironized that Kiev should perhaps also send gifts to Berlusconi, referring to some audios from the former Italian president in which he acknowledged having received up to twenty bottles of vodka from Putin, among other gifts.
