A Special Envoy for the Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Gniatkowski, is in the country.

Based in Wellington New Zealand, Mr. Gniatkowski met with Prime Minister, Tuilaepa Sa’ilele Malielegaoi to discuss the bilateral relationship between the two countries. 

@ @samoa_observer.Thanks Editor in Chief, Savea Sano Malifa &Matā'afa Keni Lesa for interesting exchange of ideas.ZG pic.twitter.com/TkM1rnof16

— PLinNewZealand (@PLinNewZealand) August 16, 2016

Later, he visited the Samoa Observer’s Office at Vaitele where he met with the Samoa Observer’s Editor-in-Chief, Gatoaitele Savea Sano Malifa and Editor, Mata’afa Keni Lesa.

 “The main purpose of this trip is to meet with the Prime Minister as well as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to exchange some ideas on U.N. issues, global challenges and also bilateral cooperation,” Mr. Gniatkowski said.

“Poland and Samoa established diplomatic relations 2012; we are like minded nations regarding democracy and we comply with the international laws and of course the Catholic religion.”

One of the key issues for Mr. Gniatkowski is Poland’s Security Council Campaign.

“We were one of the founding countries of the U.N. and we are currently running as a candidate for the Security Council for 2018-2019,” he said.

“We will be very happy if we were elected next year in June and we wanted to bring some new experience because over 20 years ago before we joined the European Union and NATO so we have quite a lot of good new expertise regarding the developments in our part of Europe.

“I wanted to exchange this idea with your Prime Minister and on the occasion we were talking about the Olympic Games.”

According to Mr. Gniatkowski, Poland is looking at increasing its engagement with the outside world.

 “We have a 7,000 strong Polish community in New Zealand and I am pleased to see a few Polish working in the Sheraton Hotel here. I will have a meeting with them; it’s quite interesting.

“So I’m visiting the countries in the region. Last month I went to Kiribati, last year to Tonga and Tuvalu; I met the Prime Ministers of these countries and of course I was interested in their positions just prior to the Paris Climate Summit and its good that we found good compromising at the summit.

“Now there’s a lot of work ahead of us to do also in this area.”

While discussing Poland’s history and the dark hours leading up to its 1989 independence, Mr. Gniatkowski says that the freedom felt now made it all worth it.

“Now we are enjoying our freedom and Democracy and we are looking forward to developing our close relations with not only with New Zealand and Australia but also the Pacific Countries,” he said.

 “Samoa in Poland is very well known, in the region there are not many countries known in Poland like Samoa; you can also expect more travelers from Poland because our people are getting wealthier and they are enjoying more freedom.

“They (Polish) are more interested in traveling to this part of the Globe.”

When asked about our current bilateral relations Mr. Gniatkowski answered: “We just established our diplomatic relations and we are waiting for the accreditation process to be completed.

 “We could try to find some common interests; maybe in research or education; I know green energy is a big challenge in Poland and Samoa but we have had some great achievements in recent years.”