Poland and the Czech Republic will jointly apply to the European Union for additional funds to cover the costs of hosting Ukrainian refugees, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, said after a meeting with his Czech counterpart, Petr Fiala.
“We have agreed with the (Czech) prime minister to jointly apply to Brussels, to the European Commission, for new funds,” Morawiecki said after the talks in Warsaw, adding that Poland and the Czech Republic were not satisfied with suggestions to use other EU programmes already in place to pay for hosting refugees.
“We’ll present our initiative soon,” Morawiecki said, insisting that the EU should offer new funds to countries that are hosting Ukrainians.
The Polish prime minister said that the war in Ukraine had “a huge impact” on both Poland and the Czech Republic, primarily through the unprecedented influx of refugees.
????PM @MorawieckiM: We have many war refugees in Poland and the Czech Republic and we have agreed with Prime Minister @P_Fiala to make a joint request to the @EU_Commission to obtain new funds to support war refugees. We will present this joint initiative soon. pic.twitter.com/KYbvKSthzk
— Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland (@PremierRP_en) April 29, 2022
Since February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, 3,033,000 people have crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border into Poland, the Border Guard (SG) tweeted on Friday morning. Some of the refugees have continued their journey to the West and a considerable number have already returned to their country, but most have stayed in Poland. So far, the costs of hosting the refugees have been covered by Polish society and the government.
????PM @MorawieckiM: We also discussed how to structure policy in the European forum in the right way in the coming months and years. The Czech Republic will play a huge role as Prime Minister @P_Fiala takes over the presidency of the EU Council from 1 July. pic.twitter.com/7RPf1Rkktf
— Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland (@PremierRP_en) April 29, 2022
????PM @MorawieckiM: Secondly, there is a disruption of normal economic phenomena. We talked about “putinflation”, which is also a problem for the Czech Republic.
— Chancellery of the Prime Minister of Poland (@PremierRP_en) April 29, 2022