Deputy Minister Szynkowski vel Sęk held talks in Munich on the prospects for Polish-Bavarian cooperation and teaching Polish in this state with Melanie Huml, Bavarian State Minister for European and International Affairs. Currently, Poland is Bavaria’s largest trading partner in Central and Eastern Europe and third largest in the EU. During a meeting with Karl Freller, Vice-President of the Bavarian State Parliament and Director of the Bavarian Memorial Foundation, Deputy Minister Szynkowski vel Sęk expressed his disappointment with a lack of Polish representative at the Foundation’s Council. Deputy Minister Szynkowski vel Sęk laid a wreath at the former concentration camp Dachau, where Poles accounted for most of its victims.

In Düsseldorf, after a short meeting with the Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia and the leader of the CDU Armin Laschet, Deputy Minister Szynkowski vel Sęk talked with Stephan Holthoff-Pförtner, Minister for Federal, European and International Affairs, and also met with André Kuper, President of the State Parliament, whom he joined for a virtual opening of a Visegrad Group poster exhibition. One of the main issues addressed was the far insufficient availability of Polish language teaching in Germany’s public and private education system. In a frank conversation, the Polish side once again illustrated the failure to provide equal funding for teaching the mother tongue in both countries, as stipulated by the Treaty.  The deputy head of Polish diplomacy also voiced his firm disapproval of the German side not meeting their obligation to renovate the Polish House in Bochum. During a briefing after his visit to North Rhine-Westphalia, Deputy Minister Szynkowski vel Sęk said that “for the past ten years we have only heard declarations and we cannot wait to see Germany’s specific actions. It is deeply disappointing on the eve of the anniversary of the Treaty. We expect the German side to guarantee the funding of renovation works and to take immediate and necessary actions to prevent the building from damage.” Deputy Minister Szynkowski also added that “we are not going to wait for it forever – the Polish state is ready to take responsibility for the condition of this historical and symbolic place for Polish community in Germany, and finance renovation with its own means should the German side fail to take specific action within the next few weeks.” The deputy head of Polish diplomacy also referred to the expected visit of President Frank-Walter Stenmeier in Poland on 17 June: “We expect a lot from this visit. We believe that the German side is willing to fill their Treaty-based commitments with content, and that Polish-German partnership is founded on actions, not declarations.”

MFA Press Office 

Photo: Joerg Koch/ Bayerische Staatskanzlei, Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Cologne / MFA, Ingo Lammert, Land NRW / Robin Teller