Polish PM praises Polish-German relations during visit to Berlin

Following a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel as part of his two-day visit to Berlin on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki described Germany as Poland's main trading partner and a key investment and political partner.

"A good visit. Yesterday evening more historical, today very practical, related to Polish interests, which we will certainly guard at all possible sections of the front," Morawiecki told journalists.

On Tuesday morning, the Polish prime minister had a working breakfast with Chancellor Merkel. "I'm glad that we have a good, solid partner in Germany, which is also our main trading and economic partner, and we are becoming a key investment, economic and also obviously political partner for Germany," he said after the meeting.

The PM said the talks had focused on three "macro subjects." The first concerned the future EU budget and Morawiecki drew attention to the fact that there will be a special EU summit on February 20 devoted to the subject, which he said he had agreed with Merkel would be "a very difficult (European) Council." He added that the "minimum plan" concerning the negotiations was that they would ensure good financing for the development of infrastructure and equal subsidies for farmers.

The second subject raised at the meeting with Merkel concerned the protectionist activities of some countries, namely the USA and China. "Europe is based on trade," Morawiecki said. "We have an open economy. Exports are important to us. We want to avoid protectionism." He said Poland and Germany were "on the same wavelength" on the matter.

Morawiecki said another subject raised with Merkel was that of tax mechanisms within the framework of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). He said that in line with earlier agreements, by the end of the year the OECD is to work out a mechanism for a common digital tax, for example.

"We await the idea, propositions and we will then either be ready for that to be part of the EU budget (...) or the digital tax will be introduced in an identical way in all member states and then Poland will be a beneficiary of that within the framework of our budget, in other words as we have talked about it before," he said.

A further topic in the Morawiecki-Merkel discussion was climate policy. Morawiecki said Merkel saw Poland's energy mix with great understanding and that he in turn had drawn attention to electric vehicles, to new technology and to where Poland is a leader in those fields that also contribute to environmental improvement and CO2 reduction. He added that climate policy talks would also be difficult but that he was optimistic about their outcome. "Poland will certainly defend its interests in this area," Morawiecki said.