The government’s position is as follows. In my opinion, until we solve the problem, Ukraine can only dream of joining the European Union – and the Ukrainians know this. “So I must stress that without resolving the problem, we cannot reach an agreement with Ukraine in the long term.”
– Jablonski said.
He added that by joining the European Union, Poland would officially enter into an alliance with Ukraine, but this would be impossible without resolving such a “big problem.”
In the 1940s, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) massacred hundreds of thousands of Poles and Jews in the Volhynia region. The tragedy remains an important issue in the relationship between Ukraine and Poland. In the early 2000s, the two countries did much to explain the tragedy and search for the remains of the murdered victims, but in 2017, Poroshenko’s Ukrainian government halted exhumations because Poland’s government destroyed an illegally constructed UPA monument. President Volodymyr Zelensky later restored permission to search for victims, but has not yet fully met the Polish government’s requests regarding finding possible graves.
By the way, it still seems that there will be a change of government in Poland, so the position presented by Jablonski could easily change.
Cover image source: Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images
