President Komorowski met with his French counterpart, Nicolas Sarkozy Courtesy of Prezydent.pl

Recently elected Polish President Bronisław Komorowski made his first major trip abroad last week, visiting Brussels, Paris and Berlin. In Brussels, Mr Komorowski urged European Union member states to maintain the generous levels of EU funding for the bloc’s poorer regions when it overhauls its budget.

“We expect the Cohesion Fund to be maintained. It is so important to make solidarity real, to make development levels more equal,” said Mr Komorowski.

The EU27 will launch negotiations next year on the shape of the 2014-2021 budget and many European politicians are calling for austerity following the global economic crisis, which has depleted government coffers and increased national debts. At present, the EU’s annual budget amounts to around €130 billion.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso has stated that the EU’s executive arm would back poorer countries from Central Europe in any budgetary dispute with wealthier member states.

“There should be no doubt about the position of the Commission, my own position. I have been fighting all my life for the cohesion policy,” he told a news conference after talks with President Komorowski.

Poland is the biggest beneficiary of EU largesse, which funds motorway construction, environmental clean-up efforts and many other projects. It was allocated €69 billion in regional aid from the EU’s 2007-2013 budget.

Meanwhile, after a meeting with President Sarkozy in Paris, Mr Komorowski confirmed his desire to revive the Weimar Triangle, a group established by Poland, France and Germany in 1991.

Mr Komorowski said a summit of the three countries would be organized late this year or in early 2011.

The last Weimar Triangle summit was held in 2005. During the presidency of Mr Komorowski’s predecessor, the late Lech Kaczyński, ties between the members of the political grouping were strained.

Mr Komorowski visited Germany on Friday, where he met with the German chancellor and president.