The telephone call with the new US secretary of state reaffirmed the willingness to continue strengthening the Polish-US partnership. Minister Rau and Secretary Blinken discussed priority cooperation areas and assessed the international situation.

The chief of Polish diplomacy took part in a ministerial panel discussion on the human rights situation in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, on the sidelines of the 46th session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The EU’s policy towards Russia, developments in Hong Kong, and a discussion with the US secretary of state were the major points of the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) held in Brussels on Monday. The ministers also took a political decision to impose sanctions in response to the persecution of Alexei Navalny.

On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Visegrad Group (V4), a summit of the V4 prime ministers was held in Kraków on 17 February with Charles Michel, President of the European Council, in attendance.

“What binds us together is not only our geographical contiguity. We not only have a common history or a common understanding of the words “freedom” and “solidarity”, but we also face similar socio-economic challenges,” said Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Government Plenipotentiary for the Polish Presidency of the Visegrad Group and the Celebrations of the 30th Anniversary of Visegrad Cooperation Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk during today’s media briefing at the Chancellery of the Prime Minister.

Thirty years ago, on 15 February 1991, the presidents of Poland and the Czechoslovakia, and the prime minister of Hungary signed the Declaration on Cooperation between the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic, the Republic of Poland and the Republic of Hungary in Striving for European Integration in the castle of Visegrad, Hungary.

On Monday, 15 February 2021, a stamp commemorating the “30th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Visegrad Group” was released. The issue is a joint initiative of the Polish Post and postal operators in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Post office customers and stamp collectors can buy the stamp during Poland’s presidency of the Visegrad Group (V4) which started in July 2020.

- The V4 was and still is a pragmatic and useful cooperation platform - said Minister Zbigniew Rau on the 30th anniversary of the establishment of the Visegrad Group during his conversation with Slovakia’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs Ivan Korčok. - We can be proud of what we have achieved over the past 30 years - underlined Minister Korčok.

Post-Covid-19 recovery was the focus of the first meeting organised as a video conference by the Permanent Representative of Poland to the OSCE in Vienna under this year’s Polish Chairmanship of the OSCE Mediterranean Partnership for Co-operation.