Polish and Icelandic Foreign Ministers meet in Warsaw

Foreign Minister Ossur Skarphedinsson met with his Polish counterpart Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw yesterday. Poland will take over the EU Council Presidency as of 1 July and it is anticipated that some of the chapters in the EU Iceland accession talks will be opened during the Polish presidency.

The ministers discussed the membership talks, during which the Polish foreign minister expressed Poland‘s full support for Iceland‘s EU membership bid. Foreign Minister Skarphedinsson requested assistance from Poland to find solutions, mutually acceptable to Iceland and the EU, in the chapter on fisheries. The ministers also discussed the bilateral relations shared between the countries, which are extensive, not least due to the fact that the Polish population in Iceland measures 12.000 people. Skarphedinsson thanked Minister Sikorski for Poland‘s support in the past, for example in November 2008 when the country lent Iceland $200 million to help increase its currency reserves.