• Trzaskowski will appear in a week at a meeting of the House of Representatives for Europe Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs.
  • The head of the capital is to say, inter alia, about freedom of expression and the status of the judiciary in Poland, as well as about the migration crisis at the Polish-Belarus border
  • This is the second debate in the US Congress on the situation in our country in a month
  • More similar information can be found on Onet homepage

Rafai Trzaskowski will appear in U.S. Congress On Thursday, December 2 this year. He was invited to attend the meeting of the Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives for Europe.

Trzaszkowski: I want to present the largest possible picture of the situation in Poland

His speech will be devoted to assessing the state of democracy and the rule of law as well as the protection of human rights in Central and Eastern Europe. The scheduled discussion will cover issues of rule of law, freedom of expression and the state of the justice system in Poland. Members of Congress are also interested in construction issues Nord Stream 2 I The situation on the Polish-Belarusian border.

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Trzaskovsky’s speech will be combined with questions about the situation in our part of Europe. Before the session, the Mayor of Warsaw plans to hold a series of consultations with experts.

I will devote the next few days to working on a position that will be a common voice for many circles on the state of Polish democracy. I want not only to give my opinion, but to convey to the representatives of the country in which modern democracy was born, perhaps the whole picture of the situation in our country, says Onet. Rafai Trzaskowski.

The Mayor of Warsaw has planned to hold the first consultative meeting next Monday. He will meet with representatives of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE agency concerned with the protection of human rights.

The rest of the article is below the video:

The Subcommittee on Europe is made up of representatives from both Democrats and Republicans. This year, its members have already expressed their views on the situation in Poland. In August this year. Democratic Party Chairman Bill Keating and Republican Vice Chairman Brian Fitzpatrick signed a statement warning against the House’s adoption of the revised Media Act (tzw. Lex TVN), stressing that it is in line with the “disturbing trend regarding independent media in Poland”.

Other founders of the Charter of Free Cities will also appear

Apart from Rafai Trzaskovsky, the authorities of Budapest, Prague and Bratislava will be heard. It is no coincidence that all four are signatories to the Charter of Free Cities. The aim of this initiative is to promote cooperation and shared values ​​of democracy, freedom, human dignity, sustainable development and combat against populism, nationalism, climate crisis, social inequality and stratification.

The Charter of Free Cities was signed in December 2019 by Prague Mayor Zdenek Hcip, Mayor of Warsaw Rafai Trzaskowski, and Budapest Mayor Gergeli Karaksoni and Matos Vallo in December 2019. It quickly caught the attention of the foreign press. The Guardian described the four mayors and presidents as “an island in an illiberal storm”.

Check also: Major changes in Warsaw City Hall. Onet sources: This is the start of a major reshuffle

Despite the fact that the authorities come from different political backgrounds, it ran for office in order to offer a better management model to its residents. In their view, the division between East and West on European issues related to, among other things, integration is artificial. In their view, progressive and liberal urbanites undoubtedly support the European Union, even in countries that have traditionally opposed integration and cooperation.

In September this year. At the summit held in Budapest, 20 other cities from all over the world joined the initiative of the authorities of Bratislava, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw: Amsterdam, Barcelona, ​​Florence, Frankfurt, Gdansk, Ljubljana, London, Los Angeles, Mannheim, Paris, Podgorica, Rijeka, Stuttgart, Taipei, Taiwan, Tirana, Ulm , Zagreb and Vienna. Thus, the charter spread not only to the rest of Europe, but also to Asia and the USA.

This is another debate in Congress about democracy in Poland and Hungary

This is not the first time recently that members of the US Congress have discussed the state of democracy in Poland and Hungary. November 3, the so-called Helsinki Committee in the US Congress organized a special hearing on the erosion of democracy in Hungary and Poland. Three rapporteurs presented their expert opinions on the state of democracy in both countries to members of Congress. During the deliberations, members of Congress questioned what the US government could do in this regard.

Also check: The US Congress debated the rule of law in Poland and Hungary. Sanctions cannot be ruled out.

“In Poland and Hungary we are witnessing a weakening of democratic freedoms and respect for the law in recent years,” Senator Ben Cardin said. He highlighted “disturbing trends”, including attacks targeting the LGBT community. Heather Conley, the former State Department diplomat responsible for Europe, noted that the two countries should be held accountable, and should be considered as suitable places for US forces.

On the other hand, Dalibor Roach, an analyst at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, said that although “many American leaders of the conservative right are sympathetic to the current governments in Poland and Hungary,” it is worth noting that these countries are moving toward authoritarianism.

The American Helsinki Committee, or rather the Committee on Security and Cooperation in Europe, is a congressional body composed of politicians from both houses of the US Parliament. It deals with human rights, democracy and other topics related to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The US Congress is the highest representative body and primary legislative body in the United States. Its headquarters is the Capitol Building. The Congress currently consists of the Senate of 100 people and the House of Representatives of 435 people.