Poland's president-elect says he is currently against Ukraine joining EU

Karol Nawrocki, Poland's newly elected president, has said that he does not currently support Ukraine's accession to the European Union.

Source: Nawrocki in an interview with the Hungarian newspaper Mandiner

Details: Nawrocki, who emerged as the winner of the Polish presidential election, was asked what he thought about Ukraine being fast-tracked into the EU.

"At the moment, I am against Ukraine's accession to the European Union," he said.

However, Nawrocki said Poland should "support Ukraine from a strategic and geopolitical point of view".

He added that for him and the entire region, the biggest threat is Russia.

"It is a post-imperial, neo-communist state led by Vladimir Putin, a war criminal. I am very critical of the Russian Federation, where I am being persecuted, by the way, as the president of the Institute of National Memory. I face a five-year prison sentence," Nawrocki said.

Quote: "On the one hand, we must support Ukraine in its conflict with the Russian Federation, but Ukraine must understand that other countries, including Poland and Hungary and other European countries, have their own interests.

For example, Poland has an interest in exhuming the Volyn [tragedy] victims. During the election campaign I did not agree, and as president I will not agree, to unfair competition with Ukraine for Polish agriculture or the logistics sector. We need to reach a compromise and consensus on these issues. I see Ukraine as a country that, although it is very courageous in defending itself against the Russian Federation, must also respect the interests of other countries that otherwise support Ukraine."

[The Volyn tragedy was a series of events that led to the ethnic cleansing of the Polish and Ukrainian populations in 1943 during World War II. It was part of a long-standing rivalry between Ukrainians and Poles in what is now Ukraine's west. Poland considers the Volyn tragedy a genocide of Poles – ed.].

Background:

• Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing opposition-backed candidate, won 50.89% of the vote in the second round of the Polish presidential election, while his rival Rafał Trzaskowski received 49.11%.
• Nawrocki is due to take office on 6 August.
• In January, when he was a presidential candidate, Nawrocki stated that he did not see Ukraine "in either the EU or NATO". The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry dismissed Nawrocki’s remarks about Ukraine's future in the EU and NATO as "biased and manipulative".

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