Polish President: "EU Presidency Is A Great Opportunity For Czechs"

Prague - The six-month Czech presidency of the European Union that started on January 1 is a great opportunity for the Czech Republic, Polish President Lech Kaczynski said after a meeting with his Czech counterpart Vaclav Klaus today.

Kaczynski at the same time said he believes that the Czech presidency would be successful. Each EU-presiding country becomes a power and it depends on it how to it will use this opportunity, Kaczynski said.

"We envy the Czech Republic this presidency very much," Kaczynski noted.

Poland will preside over the EU in 2011 only. Kaczynski said the situation would be different then since the Lisbon treaty would probably take effect, changing the functioning of the EU.

The Lisbon treaty is to reform the EU institutions. Besides Ireland, which rejected the treaty in a referendum last June, the Czech Republic is the only EU member state that has not yet ratified it.

Klaus and Kaczynski today primarily focused on the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that led to restricted gas supplies from Russia, but both presidents also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Kaczynski said the EU represented by the Czech Republic should play an active role in the solution to the conflict. Both presidents mentioned that they touched upon several ideas in this respect during their talks, but they did not elaborate.

"I suppose that diplomacy demands certain discretion in such complex matters," Kaczynski said.

The Israeli military operation against the Gaza Strip started on December 27, 2008 in reaction to the activities of the Hamas radical movement. The conflict has so far claimed several hundred civilians victims in Gaza, according to Palestinian sources.

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg headed the EU mission that visited the region last weekend. Klaus said today the Czech Republic would try to use all contacts that might help reach ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict soon and set up a long-term rational settlement in this part of the world.

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Author: ČTK