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Talks on support for Polish community in Germany and German diaspora in Poland

07.03.2019

The representatives of foreign and home affairs ministries of Poland and Germany met yesterday in Warsaw to discuss the preparations for the plenary session of Polish-German Round Table. The meeting focused on support for Polish diaspora in Germany and German community in Poland.

Preparatory meeting for the Round Table

The purpose of the Thursday meeting held at the Polish MFA was to prepare for the talks in the Round Table format with the participation of the representatives of Polish diaspora in Germany and German community in Poland. It was decided that the session in its full Round Table format would take place in the second half of June at the invitation of the German side. The last session in this format was held in Warsaw in 2015.

“We decided to hold a Round Table session in Germany in the second half of June with the participation of Polish community, both governments and German minority in Poland; we also agreed on the outline of three thematic pillars,” said Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk. He also stressed that the first pillar will focus on Polish language teaching as a native language in Germany and German language teaching for the German minority in Poland, and the second will discuss the renovation of the Polish House in Bochum. The third pillar will be devoted to historical affairs, in particular commemorating the pre-war Union of Poles in Germany and the Polish World War Two victims in Germany.

The meeting explored the most important and still unresolved issues in line with the guidelines of the 2011 Joint Statement, in particular concerning the right to study one’s native language, the support for Polish minority organisations in Germany and German minority organisations in Poland, as well as historical issues.

The participants agreed on the importance of the Polish-German Treaty, which gave a special dimension to bilateral relations, granting a special status to Polish community in Germany and German community in Poland, guaranteeing their right to preserve their cultural, religious and linguistic identity.

The meeting was attended by Deputy Foreign Minister Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk and Secretary of State at the Ministry of the Interior and Administration Paweł Szefernaker on the Polish side. The German side was represented by Stephan Mayer, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Professor Bernd Fabritius, Federal Government Commissioner for Matters Related to Ethnic German Resettlers and National Minorities.

 

MFA Press Office

 

Fot. Gabriel Piętka / MFA

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