Czech president arrives for farewell visit to Poland

Presidents Komorowski (left) and Klaus at Presidential Palace, Warsaw: photo - PAP/Grzegorz Jakubowski.

This will be Vaclav Klaus’s farewell to Poland as he will be standing down as president before elections in the Czech Republic in January, after serving two terms as head of state.

President Klaus and his wife Livia were greeted at the Presidential Palace by Bronislaw Komorowski and First Lady Anna before talks between the two heads of state on bilateral relations, the EU and as economic issues such as infrastructure development and energy security in the region.

Václav Klaus, a former prime minister and one of the founders of the Czech Republic's largest centre-right party, Civic United, will then lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw and meet with speaker of the lower house of parliament Ewa Kopacz, then Speaker of the Senate Bogdan Borusewicz.

In the afternoon, Klaus will receive an honorary doctorate awarded to him by the University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski.

In the evening, the Czech presidential couple will be given a banquet in their honour by President Komorowski.

Tomorrow, President Klaus will fly to Krakow in the south where he will lay flowers on the tomb of the late Lech Kaczynski and former First Lady Maria, who died in the 2010 Smolensk air disaster in western Russia. (pg)