The European Peace Facility, the issue of Ukrainian children abducted by Russia and the Belarusian regime's crackdown on dissidents, dominated the agenda of the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, on the first day of an EU summit on Thursday.
Morawiecki gave a recap of the talks between EU leaders on Thursday night.
The European Peace Fund, which finances military purchases to help Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression, was the first issue to be addressed.
The prime minister said that Poland has received about 200 million EUR 43 million from the facility. He added that there is very good news, as we have been promised that we'll have EUR 200 million more in about two to three weeks' time, so there's a billion Polish zlotys that we'll spend on defence policy from European money.
Morawiecki said he argued that the EU fund be bigger, not EUR 3.5 billion, but significantly greater. The EU summit started with a meeting with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and a discussion on the abduction of Ukrainian children by Russia, Morawiecki said.
Morawiecki said Poland and the European Commission are involved in piloting the case and supporting Ukraine in looking for those children. Kidnapping children, abducting children, denationalising children resembles the worst Nazi German practices from the times of World War Two, he continued.
Morawiecki brought up the issue of brutal practices towards political prisoners of the Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko. He made it very clear that the Polish national minority is particularly persecuted by Lukashenko.