Onyszkiewicz: Meeting of Ukrainian-Polish Partnership Forum to be held in Lutsk in May

KYIV, May 3 /UKRINFORM/. The next meeting of the Ukrainian-Polish Partnership Forum will be held in the first half of May in Lutsk. During the meeting the sides will discuss the possibility of creating a common university, cultural and youth exchanges, issues of common history and political situation in both countries, the Co-Chair from the Polish side, former Vice-President of the European Parliament, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, told UKRINFORM.

"The Ukrainian side has proposed a meeting of the Forum in Lutsk in the first or second week of May. Now we are coordinating this issue,” Onyszkiewicz said. He noted that the date of the Forum was moved from July to May due to EURO 2012.

He also said that during the meeting the sides will address the possibility of establishing in Lutsk the Ukrainian-Polish university. "I know that this project has the support of President Yanukovych and the Ukrainian side is trying to modify it somehow: to attract partners to Ukraine and Poland from other countries," Onyszkiewicz noted. At the same time he said that the Forum has only advisory powers and can not independently decide on setting up this institution. "This is the authority of educational institutions and governments," he stated.

According to the former Vice-President of the European Parliament, during the meeting the sides will also focus on cultural exchange, in particular the prospects for studying the Ukrainian language in Poland, and the Polish - in Ukraine.

Additionally, the Ukrainian and Polish sides plan to discuss the upcoming 70th anniversary of the tragic events in Volyn. "We must do everything to ensure that this event does not become a ground for heating anti-Ukrainian sentiments in Poland or anti-Polish in Ukraine. At the previous Forum [in December 2011 in Warsaw - ed.] we sent an appeal to parliaments of both countries to refrain from declarations, which may complicate the process of Polish-Ukrainian unification," said the Polish expert, stressing that the issue should be revisited.

Onyszkiewicz believes that during the Forum the sides can not avoid discussing the political situation in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian-Polish Partnership Forum was founded in February 2011 during the III Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministries of Ukraine and Poland in Warsaw. The sides, in particular, have agreed that the Forum should be a platform for exchange of views and possible development of common assessments of the historical perspective and current issues of our times. The forum includes prominent politicians, journalists, representatives of public organizations, educational, research and political science institutions in Ukraine and Poland.

The Forum is co-chaired from Ukraine by MP Anatoly Kinakh, from Poland - Janusz Onyszkiewicz.