The meeting of the Polish Prime Minister with the President of the European Parliament reflects the solidarity of action in the face of the immense crisis created by Russia. According to the participants, despite the massive scale of actions taken, the existing logistic, humanitarian, military and financial support needs to be continued and expanded.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and President Roberta Metsola discussed actions that in the future would enable the building of necessary institutions and homes in Ukraine. This would also bring hope to those conflict victims who have not left for other countries.

“The war in Ukraine – a war started by Russia – is much more than immense destruction, victims of war crimes, or women and children killed. This is also an approximately 10 million wave of refugees. There are still about 6.7 million people in western Ukraine,” the Prime Minister emphasised. And he added – “Roberta and I have also held a meeting with a group of war refugees today to talk to them. All of them were speaking about a deep desire to live normal lives on the one hand but also to return to their home country and for this war to end, on the other.”

Ruble exchange rate as the litmus test

The head of the Polish government and the President of the European Parliament agreed and emphasised that the existing sanctions must be made more effective and stringent.

– The ruble exchange rate is a litmus test here, and it has returned to the level from before Russian aggression against Ukraine. This means that not all of the micro- and macro-scale financial, budgetary and monetary economic measures have proved as effective as some of the leaders had wished.

The Prime Minister also warned against a premature return to normal postulated by some European leaders:

There is no returning to normal until Ukraine defends its freedom and sovereignty. It would humiliate Europe and make it “toothless” and unable to defend its basic universal values, such as freedom and the right to life.

Additional funding for support measures

Providing support and implementing the objectives discussed during the meeting requires additional funding from the European Union.

As noted by the Prime Minister, more workable sanctions are needed but we also need more concrete funds – not funds transferred from budget to budget but new European funds – to be able to help those people here and create perspectives of a normal life for them.

“One of the proposals by the Polish government is to fund war reparations from assets and property of Russian oligarchs. You are asking – where to seek new funds? Hundreds of billions of dollars are waiting in European banks, in the Central Bank in accounts maintained for oligarchs. Freezing alone will not help. It is necessary to confiscate those assets to actually help to rebuild Ukraine later on,” the head of the government stressed.

A shared horizon

“The war fought by Ukraine is at the same time a struggle for the values that we share in Europe: today we need to help Ukraine, tomorrow it is time for its rebuilding and later – for the path of the defended Ukraine towards Europe. This is our shared responsibility and I thank all of you that together we are making efforts for the good and existence of Ukraine – of its freedom and sovereignty. I believe that together we will achieve this goal,” the Prime Minister said.