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The Vice-President of the Polish Government and Minister of Justice, Zbigniew Ziobro, blamed former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union (EU) for “building” the power of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In an interview published Monday in a Polish weekly, Ziobro attributed to Merkel “personal responsibility” in the “creation of the monster that today murders women and children in Ukraine.”
He denounced that “when Putin was practicing state terrorism, they were building together the Nord Stream gas pipeline,” in reference to a project that was described as “nefarious” in the past by Warsaw.
As for the current German government, Ziobro said that “the position of Chancellor (Olaf) Scholz also leaves much to be desired.”
For Ziobro, the European Union (EU) “built” the power of the Russian president, who, in his opinion, “fears NATO, within which there are real military obligations” because “he is a bandit, and a bandit always fears the strongest.”
The Polish politician assured that “the lack of a decision from Brussels to unblock the economic recovery fund destined for Poland is helping Putin.”
The European Commission (EC) is blocking the delivery of recovery funds to Poland — 36 billion euros in total — supposedly until the country undertakes several reforms to ensure the independence of its judicial system.
In the interview, Ziobro stated that the Russian president “plays games with the European Union with impunity” and concludes that the EU has largely contributed to strengthening the Russian president’s “position of power” with the “shameful affair” of withholding the funds, which is “a triumph for Putin.”
Now, “perhaps security concerns and the refugee problem will temporarily push Brussels to change its policy,” he ventured.
Data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) put the number of people displaced by the conflict in Ukraine at 10 million, 3.4 million of whom have left Ukraine to escape the war.
According to the Polish news agency PAP, Warsaw informed the EC and the governments of its European partners in the past few days that the cost of providing aid to the more than two million refugees arriving from Ukraine to Poland is approximately 2.2 billion euros.
The figure does not include the costs of including these people in the Polish health and education systems.
