Check against delivery! 

Thank you, my dear Minister, [for Foreign Affairs of Poland, Radosław] Sikorski, my dear Radek.

I am on my way to Ukraine. I am on my way to Kyiv, and I wanted to make a stop-over in Warsaw because certainly, we have to make consultations with our Polish friends in order to understand better what is going on in Ukraine and how we can continue our support. 

Thank you for your warm welcome.

We discussed with the Minister, and before that, with the [Secretary of State of the] Minister of Defence and Head of Military Staff all forms of our support to Ukraine: military, financial, reconstruction, measures against Russia and international outreach, the use of frozen assets. 

Allow me to recognise that Poland has demonstrated, since the beginning, a firm support for Ukraine from the day one. Hosting refugees, providing substantial military assistance, hosting the Headquarters of the training mission (EUMAM Ukraine), which will be training 40,000 Ukrainian soldiers, and offering a logistical hub for military supplies provided by all partners.

It is a lot of effort that the Polish government and the Polish society have been doing. And I want to thank you for this important contribution to the overall European Union support to Ukraine. 

I think we can say that we agreed that not only we have to support Ukraine for as long as it takes, but for whatever it takes. It is not just a matter of time, it is a matter of quantity and quality of our supplies. 

Certainly, we have to do more and quicker, because Ukraine has to prevail. Ukraine is fighting but it is also fighting for the European security. 

We need to think of the longer-term picture. Supporting Ukraine is first and foremost about helping Ukraine to defeat the invasion, but we have to think about how to reach peace and how we support Ukraine’s reconstruction process. 

I am going to Ukraine to discuss the ongoing [work on] EU security commitments. We have done a lot of consultations with Ukraine so far.

We have to continue providing ammunition. I think that we will - with the support of Poland - reach a final agreement by early March on the proposed Ukraine Assistance Fund, within the European Peace Facility, and I count on the strong support from Poland. If we agree on that, it will ensure more predictability and sustainability for further support to Ukraine being co-financed by the European Union. 

Obviously, we had a discussion about what is going on in the Middle East, in the Red Sea. I debriefed the Minister on the last steps for launching a naval mission of the European Union in the Red Sea, that will be approved – I hope – at the next Foreign Affairs Council meeting and launched by the end of the month.

Certainly, the situation in Gaza, from a humanitarian point of view, is very dramatic. Certainly, it is the consequences of the attack of Hamas against Israel on 7 October, but we have to take care of the humanitarian consequences of the Israeli answer and in particular, of the funding of UNRWA. 

The European Union has not suspended its funding to UNRWA, just asked for a control – an audit. I am sure the United Nations will launch it in a completely independent and professional manner in order to understand better the way UNRWA works. 

But keep in mind that more than 2 million people are being fed every day by UNRWA. And it is not only about Gaza, it is about Jordan, it is about Syria, it is about Lebanon. 

It is a matter of humanity and for the European Union values, this also matters.

Today, I also had an interesting exchange with the Polish civil society and think tanks, and members of the Parliament. 

You know that we are at the beginning of a “super election year” - half of the world population will be voting – also for the European Parliament at the beginning of June. Allow me to expect, to hope that Europeans will participate a lot in these elections. Also, the US elections, where we will not participate but the consequences will affect us also a lot.

60 elections around the world will shape the future of mankind. 

And in this context, we discussed about the importance of the EU-NATO cooperation and the EU-US partnership, which are especially crucial in the current geopolitical circumstances for the security and stability in Europe but also in the United States. 

Thank you. 

Q&A 

[in Polish - on further sanctions against Russia and Belarus]

We are preparing a new package of sanctions against Russia. I was informed last Friday, when we finished the meeting with ASEAN, and on Saturday, when we finished the Gymnich meeting. Work is ongoing: it will affect many people and institutions, from personal sanctions [to] firms of different countries who participate in the circumvention of sanctions. But there is still not a final agreement among Member States so I cannot go into detail but every month there is a new package of sanctions against Russia, in order to punish the ones who are responsible for the aggression against Ukraine, and for the economic circuit that allows Russia to continue having the capacities to feed the military machine. So be sure that we are every month looking at that and taking measures. 

[In Polish – on purchase of ammunition for Ukraine]

I completely agree with you [Minister Sikorski]. At the moment, we have to provide ammunition to Ukraine. It does not matter where this ammunition is being produced. But the problem today is not a lack of capacity of the European industry to produce. It is not that we have to go and buy somewhere else because we are unable to produce – we are able to produce. And an important part of our production is being exported to third countries. So, as I explained to my colleagues Ministers these days, the quickest and cheapest and more effective way of increasing our supply of ammunition to Ukraine is to stop exporting to third countries. This is something that only Member States can do, and this has been my request. And then we will go and buy outside, but maybe there is an easier solution. But I have nothing against buying. And, by the way, keep in mind that apart from the 520,000 ammunition that we have [promised to be] donated to Ukraine, our industry is producing a lot to export to Ukraine. So, when you keep in mind supplies, it is an equation. Supplies are equal to donations plus selling. We are selling on a commercial basis to Ukraine a very great number of ammunitions. For security reasons, I cannot say the figures, even less where this ammunition is coming from. But do not believe that there are only donations. Our industry produces to donate and produces to sell – and produces to sell to others. So, the best way of selling more to Ukraine or to donate more to Ukraine is to try to tell the others, “Please, wait, you are not at war. You can wait some months and divert this production to Ukraine”. This is a political decision that the Member States have to take. 

• Link to the video (starting as of 5:00): https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/video/I-252347