President pays official visit to France
On Thursday morning in Brussels, President Bronisław Komorowski met with Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council.
After the meeting, he flew to Paris where, having placed flowers at the “Polakom poległym za Francję” (Poles killed in the defence of France) monument and at the grave of Frédéric Chopin, he began his first official visit to France.
In Paris, Komorowski met with the President of the French National Assembly, Bernard Accoyer, and then took part in the renewal ceremony of the eternal flame at the Arc de Triomphe.
In the afternoon, the president visited the Louvre and met with French president, Nicolas Sarkozy.
“The Weimar Triangle will receive new life thanks to the cooperation of heads of state. First, there will be a French-Polish summit and then a summit of the Weimar Triangle. Details still have to be negotiated with the German side,” Komorowski said during a briefing after his meeting with the French president.
The exact date of these meetings has not been decided yet but the president hopes that “this will be done quite soon.”
Bronisław Komorowski also said that he and Sarkozy agreed that “when Poland presides over the European Union, Poland and France will coordinate certain ideas with each other and complete them together, as France will then play an important role within the G-8 and G-20.”
"This is a harbinger of an opportunity to make relations between France and Poland much closer within the EU. It opens up favourable avenues for the future,” the Polish president said.
Bronisław Komorowski then had talks with the Prime Minister of France, François Fillon, and attended a party event at the Polish embassy.