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We have committed ourselves to building good relations with our neighbours. We have improved our relations with Germany and Russia. In co-operation with our partners in Central and Eastern Europe, we have made our voice not just heard but also heeded in the process of creating EU policy. The positive economic results of the last few years – the fact that Poland is the only European country that has not fallen into recession – have strengthened Poland’s global position.
Today, Poland is attracting the attention of other nations not for its romantic heroism, but for the resourcefulness, inventiveness and industriousness of its people. Poles are no longer “a great national banner”, as Norwid used to say, but rather an increasingly well-organised civil society.
We will counteract the restriction of policies financed by the EU budget, particularly the cohesion policy and the mechanisms of the Common Agricultural Policy.
Polish diplomacy has been seeking regulations of this kind. These efforts were crowned with the recent success of Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the European Council devoted to the Europe 2020 economic strategy. Poland managed to achieve all of its goals, namely to emphasise the due importance of the cohesion policy and agricultural policy in the Strategy, to highlight the need for infrastructure investment and to take into account the different levels of development amongst member countries when implementing the Strategy.
The participation of a Polish expert in the group drafting the Alliance’s new strategy is an affirmation of our position within NATO.
The 30th anniversary this year of the establishment of Solidarity will offer a further opportunity to honour the movements for freedom in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The motto: “No freedom without Solidarity” conveys a universal message.
We want our partners to perceive Poland as a country that is not only modern, but also rooted in the world’s heritage. At the world EXPO in Shanghai we will present Poland as a country with a robust and modern economy, successfully operating as part of the European single market.