PM says opposition partly responsible for Ukraine crisis
Poland's prime minister has said in an interview with PAP that the inactivity of the European People's Party (EPP), headed by Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk, must shoulder some of the blame for current Russia-Ukraine tensions.
Asked about criticisms from opposition figures, including Tusk, of his presence at a meeting of rightist politicians in Madrid, Mateusz Morawiecki took aim at the Civic Platform leader.
"We could behave like the (Civic - PAP) Platform, which has never undertaken any real action to change the position of the European People's Party towards the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline," he said.
Nord Stream 2 is an almost completed Russia-Germany gas pipeline which bypasses Ukraine and Central Europe. According to its critics, it endangers energy security in Eastern Europe and is a geopolitical tool of the Kremlin intended to exert blackmail on other countries.
"Donald Tusk is the leader of that party, among the members of which are the leaders of Germany's CDU, which for many years has formed the government in Germany - but he has never persuaded the Germans to pull out of Nord Stream 2, from the pro-Putin policy," Morawiecki added.
"It is no exaggeration to say that what is happening today to the east of our borders, is also an effect of the Platform's actions - or rather lack of action, to influence a policy change of their party colleagues from the European People's Party," Morawiecki told PAP.
"Tusk looks at the gas pistol pointed by Putin at the heads of Ukraine, Poland and many other European countries, and pretends it's a water pistol - probably because he is afraid of the reaction of his German political colleagues. But his propaganda isn't very effective. People remember who hugged Putin, about whom the Russian media wrote "our man in Warsaw."
