Sue van der Merwe and Polish counterpart under-secretary of state Witold
Waszczykowski at the Union Buildings, Pretoria
8 October 2007
My counterpart from Poland and I have today had discussions around our
bilateral relationship as well as matters relating to our multilateral
interactions.
We have had extremely fruitful talks today focusing on these areas. South
Africa and Poland have very deep bilateral relations with a number of
agreements in place and we have a very strong political relationship as well as
an impressively growing trade relationship between our two countries. South
African companies are represented in Poland and vice-versa.
Today, we discussed a number of issues including becoming involved in
agricultural cooperation and other areas. To this end, we are evaluating some
of the agreements in place with a view to improving on the efficiency and
effectiveness thereof.
We also discussed high-level visits including Ministerial and senior
government officials visiting each other's country to deepen our relations and
in addition to this, we also believe that we should continue these annual
consultations in order to strengthen the relationship between the two
countries.
On the multilateral side: we discussed the Africa â European Union Summit in
Lisbon later this year and had very fruitful discussions in that regard.
Under-Secretary of State Witold Waszczykowski
That was a very thorough briefing.
I would like to say thank you very much Madam Minister for inviting us to
your beautiful country. As you mentioned, we are trying to consult with you as
frequently as possible.
We share a number of points on the international agenda. In this regard, one
of the major issues we addressed was the relationship between the European
Union and Africa. South Africa is one of the most frequently visited and
consulted with countries in Africa because we think that our neighbouring
continents must cooperate to resolve some of their challenges.
As Madame Minister has mentioned, we have also covered an extensive
bilateral agenda. Let me remind you that a number of years South Africa has
been an important settlement country relating to the migration following the
Second World War. Thousands of people emigrated to South Africa following this
war, and during the communist era.
We were never a colonial power. Poland never participated in the split
and/or division of any continent.
We have a successful transformation of the country from the communist time
to a liberal market and democratic country. We have many things to offer, many
things to exchange including the sharing of experiences of transformation.
Regretfully there was not enough time to discuss further hence we have
decided to meet as frequently as possible to enhance co-operation.
There are a number of other areas I would like to point out: our countries
in the next few years will have similar targets in mind, we are going to
develop our countries further and we are going to host important events in our
countries. South Africa will host the 2010 FIFA Soccer World Cup and Poland
together with Ukraine will host, two years later, the European Football
Championships. This was also an important issue to discuss.
Questions and answers:
Question: Deputy Minister van der Merwe, on the multilateral side, you said
you discussed the Africa â European Union Summit. Could you give us some
information regarding your discussions?
Answer: (Deputy Minister van der Merwe) Both the Polish and South African
governments believe this is a very important meeting due to take place. You
will all be aware this meeting has not taken place for seven years. We think
that there are many matters to discuss between the two continents and this is a
very opportune time to begin to reconvene these meetings so that the respective
continents can engage on many matters of mutual importance.
You will know that on South Africa's side, Europe is our biggest trading
partner and it is very important that we begin to engage on that level between
the European Union and the African Union.
Answer: (Deputy Minister Waszczykowski) Europe is a collection of countries
who have transformed themselves into a "donor club" because we understand that
it is not enough to have wealth and a well-developed situation only in Europe.
If there is problem of poverty and underdevelopment around you, we cannot
create borders around a prosperous Europe. We are ready to participate in a
programme of assisting other countries on other continents. Although we still
have some unsolved challenges in Europe, the Balkans, etc, we still feel there
are problems in adjacent areas and adjacent continents of which Africa is one.
So we were just discussing the ways in which we could use resources, knowledge
and experiences, especially experiences. In Poland I have talked about our
successful transformation. Maybe we cannot add lots of money but we can provide
you with lots of experience because Poland is proof of this successful
transformation. These were some of the issues we discussed in this regard.
Question: Deputy Minister Waszczykowski, there are frictions between your
country and the European Union on the European Treaty. I wanted to know if you
would compare this to the stand South Africa takes in terms of the
transformation of the United Nations? What are you going to do regarding the
treaty?
Answer: (Minister Waszczykowski) If there is a comparison, it is a distant
one. These two issues are separate. I wouldn't say we have friction in the
European Union. There is normal discussion and the processes of negotiation.
Poland decided to accept the new Constitution because during the last Summit in
Brussels in June this year, all European countries decided to prolong the
mechanism of voting on this Treaty for at least the next ten years. We are
happy with this and we accepted this solution. I understand there will be
additional mechanisms which is a complicated story. I donât think there is
friction but rather open discussion amongst a family of like-minded countries
and we are on the way to finding consensus.
In terms of the Security Council, this is different problem and a more
difficult one. The United Nations Charter was created after World War II more
than 60 years ago and definitely requires modification of it and the United
Nations institutions. There is no doubt about this. But, in case of the
European Union, there are 27 countries, there are close to 200 countries in the
United Nations from a number of continents. Each continent is supposed to
select a representative.
We are not going to interfere with this process. It is up to Africa to
decide which country it will elect from the Continent.
Poland and the rest of the European Union will not block the reformation of
the United Nations. We are just waiting for the candidates to represent the
continents. There is no veto policy from Europe.
Question: Deputy Minister van der Merwe, you mentioned high-level visits.
Are there any forthcoming visits at executive level? Several countries in the
European Union are threatening to boycott the EU-Africa Summit if it is
attended by President Mugabe. Others have said they will attend nonetheless
because it is overdue. What is Poland's position?
Answer: (Deputy Minister van der Merwe) We have agreed in principal on the need
to elevate our interaction to include more high level visits. There are no
exact dates or plans at the moment. Some of you may recall that the last high
level visit was from the former Deputy President in 2004. We believe it is now
time to escalate that involvement to include high level visits. South Africa
has a great deal of admiration for the way in which Poland has transformed
itself and we think this dialogue needs to be escalated.
Answer: (Deputy Minister Waszczykowski) Poland would not like to create
problems by discussing who from Africa should attend this Summit. I think it
will be good to have President Mugabe to attend the Summit to have frank and
open discussions. Otherwise he may feel the whole world is against him. We
would not like to exclude anybody from discussions.
Although the decision has not yet been taken, we would rather advocate for
the attendance of President Mugabe to enable frank discussions regarding the
challenges his country is experiencing.
Issued by: Department of Foreign Affairs
8 October 2007
