During a 1.5-hour-long meeting with the pope at the Vatican, Duda said the pair discussed the European Union and “whether there was a chance for the bloc to get out of the crises in which it is immersed”.
Duda said it was possible but that the bloc “needs to return to the values from which [it] emerged”, naming “Judeo-Christian roots” as the values which shaped the European Union.
He said the bloc was a community or “an alliance, within which there is a mutual understanding of the needs, interests and concerns” of other members.
As well as mutual respect between countries, Duda said a need for “certain cultural differences” also needed to be respected.
Poland has in the past accused other members of the European Union of getting involved in Poland’s internal policies, be it its staunch anti-migration stance during the 2015 crisis, its controversial court reform which has seen Brussels launching a number of procedures against Warsaw, and most recently, the invitation to Berlin and Brussels of a woman whom Poland had expelled from the Schengen area. (vb)