I congratulate Grzegorz Schetyna on his appointment as Poland’s new Minister of Foreign Affairs; I look forward to our close and positive collaboration.

To Germany, our Polish neighbours are outstanding partners with whom we wish to continue building an ever stronger friendship. That includes working together to shape the future of the European Union and relations with our European neighbours. Another element is jointly shouldering responsibility in the endeavour to resolve the many crises in the world.

On the subject, I thank Radosław Sikorski for the extremely close cooperation we enjoyed over many years. As Polish Foreign Minister, he did great things for German-Polish dialogue.

With this new government too, we will remain actively committed to peace, friendship and good neighbourliness between our two countries.