“Your decision to make one of your first visits after assuming the office of President to Lithuania testifies to the special bond between Lithuania and Poland – our shared history, security, and freedom,” reads the message addressed to Karol Nawrocki by the President of Lithuania, Gitanas Nausėda.
The meeting of the Presidents of Poland and Lithuania, Karol Nawrocki and Gitanas Nausėda, began on Monday after 10:30 a.m. at the Presidential Palace in Vilnius.
“Your decision to make one of your first visits after assuming the office of President to Lithuania testifies to the special bond between Lithuania and Poland – our shared history, security, and freedom,” Nausėda wrote on social media.
As the head of the Presidential International Policy Bureau, Marcin Przydacz, stated at a press briefing, the two leaders are scheduled to hold private talks, plenary discussions with their delegations, and a joint meeting with the media.
Przydacz emphasized that Lithuania is Poland’s key partner in the region, with whom Poland shares economic interests but above all common challenges stemming from Russia’s aggressive policies.
“NATO’s Eastern flank must cooperate, communicate, and create instruments of pressure on partners further west,” he said.
On Monday afternoon, the Presidents will visit the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius, after which Karol Nawrocki will visit two historic cemeteries in the Lithuanian capital. The first is the Antakalnis Cemetery, where he will lay flowers at the Memorial to the Fallen for Lithuania’s Independence, which commemorates, among others, the victims of clashes with Soviet soldiers in January 1991, as well as at the Polish soldiers’ quarter located in the same cemetery.
President Nawrocki will also visit the Rasos Cemetery, where the graves of many figures important to Polish history are located. He will lay wreaths at the Mausoleum of the Mother and the Heart of the Son, where Józef Piłsudski’s mother, Maria Piłsudska, is buried alongside her son’s heart, as well as at the Chapel of the January Uprising Insurgents, where, among others, Konstanty Kalinowski and Zygmunt Sierakowski are buried.
The President will also meet with the Speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas, Saulius Skvernelis, as well as representatives of the Polish minority in Lithuania during a ceremony at the Polish Embassy. According to Przydacz, the agenda also includes a meeting with Lithuania’s Prime Minister-designate Inga Ruginienė, who has been tasked with forming a government after the previous head of government, Gintautas Paluckas, resigned in July due to corruption allegations. In the evening, Karol Nawrocki will travel to Helsinki, where on Tuesday his schedule includes, among other events, a meeting with the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb.