Poles abroad 'biggest asset' of foreign policy: president
PR dla Zagranicy
Grzegorz Siwicki
12.01.2018 12:55
Millions of Poles living abroad are “the biggest asset of Polish foreign policy,” the country’s president has said.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda (left) and wife Agata Kornhauser-Duda (second from left) during a New Year's meeting with foreign diplomats in Warsaw on Thursday. Photo: PAP/Jacek Turczyk
Addressing an audience of foreign ambassadors in Warsaw on Thursday, Andrzej Duda said that Polish people living abroad were “active in manifesting their attachment” to their home country as well as the Polish language and culture.
“I am also happy to see their successful participation in the social, cultural and economic life of the countries which they have chosen as their second homeland, contributing, by the same token, to their development,” Duda said in a major foreign policy speech at the presidential palace.
He added that Poles feel they are a community, "both in Poland and in all the places where my compatriots live.”
Referring to this year's centenary of Poland regaining independence, he announced a plan to visit “in the course of this year, a couple of important Polish centres abroad in order to celebrate, together with my compatriots, freedom and independence.”
Duda also asked diplomats from countries around the world to show support for “initiatives aimed at honouring the jubilee of our independence.”
It is estimated that around 21 million Poles live abroad. The largest Polish communities can be found in Chicago and New York in the United States. Some 2 million Poles live in Germany and 1 million in Britain, according to Polish Radio's IAR news agency.
(gs/pk)
Source: IAR, president.pl