President Andrej Kiska attended the summit of the Three Seas Initiative in Warsaw, Poland on Thursday. The goal of the initiative is to improve cooperation and infrastructure connections and thereby contribute towards a unified and cohesive European Union.

The summit was held at the invitation of the President of Poland and the President of Croatia. In addition, representatives of Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia also took part in the event.

American President Donald Trump travelled to the summit as well. He took part in the Transatlantic Panel and, after the meeting, he gave a short address.

President Kiska appreciated President Trump’s second visit to Central Europe in a short time as an important signal. “In his remarks, President Trump emphasised something that we all feel: the European Union and the United States are the most important partners for one another,” said Kiska.

One of the major topics taken up by the Transatlantic Panel was energy, and President Kiska stressed the importance of diversifying resources. “I stressed that energy is more than just a business transaction. Diversification is excellent, because energy is often used to blackmail other countries. We remember the gas crisis of 2009. And we must not forget about Ukraine. We must do everything in our power to ensure the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline does not become reality as it will be used as a weapon to blackmail Ukraine.”

Kiska also opened the topic of mutual cooperation between the European Union and the United States. “I called on President Trump to continue discussions on the collaborative project between the European Union and the United States. Specifically, how to continue with TTIP.”

On the topic of security, Kiska noted that NATO is an alliance built on shared values. “I remarked that the core of the most important article of NATO’s founding treaty, Article 5, consists of 22 words, 142 letters, roughly the length of a single Tweet. I called on President Trump to make sure we hear about Article 5 more often in this part of the world because it is the very foundation of NATO.”

Representatives of European Union member states discussed further efforts to connect the region to the benefit of a stronger European Union at other panels held during the summit. “The more connected these countries are, the stronger the European Union will be,” remarked Kiska.

President Kiska was accompanied by Deputy Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic for Informatization and Investment Peter Pellegrini on his working trip to Poland.