Elżbieta Witek’s words came as she visited a refugee reception point in the eastern Polish city of Chełm, together with a group of top women lawmakers from across Europe and Ukraine, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
“Important role for parliamentary diplomacy”
Witek told reporters: “Today, the whole democratic world has come together to assist Ukraine - but parliamentary diplomacy has a very important role to play as well.”
She said that, in addition to efforts by the European Union’s heads of state and government, “we lawmakers too, and especially parliamentary Speakers, are responsible for legislation.”
She added that without laws that legislate help “for Ukraine’s fighters but also for Ukrainians who are staying in our countries,” such support “would have been simply impossible.”
‘We want to know what else we can do’
Witek said she and her fellow women parliamentary speakers had come to Chełm “to meet families who have left Ukraine, fleeing the beastly war fomented there by Putin.”
“We would like to know what else we can do for the women who are escaping from Ukraine,” she added.
Earlier on Wednesday, Witek and her guests visited a Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Dorohusk.
The top women lawmakers were also scheduled to travel to a humanitarian relief facility near the capital Warsaw and then meet for talks in the Sejm, the lower house of Poland's parliament.
Follow-up meeting in two weeks
Witek said that her fellow female heads of parliament had pledged to speak to their presidents and prime ministers on what needs to be done to further help Ukraine.
She added that two weeks after the in-person gathering, she would hold an online follow-up meeting “to see what else we have managed to do in our countries to assist those who fight and those who are staying in our countries.”
The two-day get-together in Poland, which began on Tuesday, features top women lawmakers from Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania and Spain.
Also attending are the deputy Speaker of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, Olena Kondratiuk, and the vice-president of the European Parliament, Heidi Hautala.
Wednesday is day 56 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Poland on Wednesday reported it had welcomed 2.86 million refugees fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP