‘Despite so many difficulties I wish you and your lonesome families good Christmas. Christmas is a time we spend with our loved ones. You are not given this chance, but your fearless attitude brings hope to your fellow Belarusians’, read Minister Radosław Sikorski’s special wishes to political prisoners in Belarus.

High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton sent Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski a letter of thanks for a very successful Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union. Please find below the original letter, (underlining by the author).

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski talked on the telephone on 20 December with Grigory Nemyria, a close partner of the imprisoned former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. Grigory Nemyria thanked the Polish authorities for their position on the case of Ukraine’s former Prime Minister and for Poland’s continuous support for Ukrainian aspirations for modernization and EU integration.

To mark the first anniversary of the brutally quashed protests against undemocratic presidential elections in Belarus, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expresses solidarity with the Belarusian people. We especially unite with the arrested Belarusians who retain their dignity and remain internally free despite the repressions.

Vaclav Havel, distinguished Czech and European, a friend of Poland, passed away on 18 December in Prague. We bid him farewell with sorrow.

Third meeting of the Polish-Ukrainian Partnership Forum will be held on 20-21 December 2011 at the Palace on the Water in the Łazienki Park in Warsaw. The Forum was established in February 2011 during the 3rd Executive Council of the Polish and Ukrainian Ministries of Foreign Affairs.

It is with utmost attention that we observe the situation in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the East Asia region after the death of Kim Jong Il. The Korean Peninsula is one of the trouble spots for the global peace. We expect that the DPRK leader’s death will not upset the stability or threaten regional security.

The European Union Member States agreed yesterday, 15 December 2011, the content of the political Declaration on establishing the European Endowment for Democracy. The idea of creating the EED was presented in January 2011 by Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski in reaction to the developments in Belarus as well as the emerging Arab Spring.

On 15-16 December the 6^th edition of European Development Days will be held in Warsaw. For the first time ever the conference is organized in Central and Eastern Europe. European Development Days are co-organized by the Polish Presidency and the European Commission.

Minister Radosław Sikorski paid a working visit to Moscow on 14 December 2011 where, together with the Russian Federation’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, he signed the ‘Agreement on local border traffic between Poland and the Russian Federation’ which is to allow free cross-border movement for inhabitants of  parts of the Polish provinces of Pomorze, Warmia and Mazury  and of the Russian Kaliningrad oblast.

A prize-giving ceremony to award Aleksander Bialacki with the Polish Foreign Ministry Prize Pro Dignitate Humana was held on 12 December 2011 at the MFA headquarters in Warsaw. Bialacki received the prize for his outstanding commitment and invincible efforts at protecting human rights and values.

The third and last edition of this year’s Strategic Economic Needs and Security Exercise (SENSE) training programme targeted at Afghan officials was organized in Warsaw on 4-11 December 2011. The programme was carried out by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in co-operation with the National School of Public Administration. Forty five high- and middle-ranking government officials and representatives of the private sector and NGOs from Afghanistan attended the December edition of the programme.

A ceremony to hand over to Poland a new batch of NATO files covering the period of 1980-1984 is to be held today, 13 December 2011, during the opening of the exhibition ‘Poland – a Long Journey to Freedom’ at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels. The documents will be handed over to Undersecretary of State Bogusław Winid who will represent Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski.

A week-long study visit to Poland by eight young social activists from Myanmar (Burma) linked to the National League for Democracy (NLD) has begun on 12 December 2011. It is organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Poland took the initiative to organize the visit on the request of the NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi who had proposed it at the meeting with Undersecretary of State Krzysztof Stanowski in September 2011 during his visit to Myanmar.

Foreign Ministry online service promoting Poland ‘Do you know Polska?’ has been chosen as the website of the year 2011 in the category ‘Education and Work’. ‘Do you know Polska?’ has also been awarded the Webstar Creative prize in the prestigious category Web Design.

While at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting in Brussels, Minister Radosław Sikorski held a bilateral talk with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The discussion covered preparations for the May 2012 NATO Summit in Chicago, the future of the EU and the eurozone, the elections in Russia and the situation in Ukraine, Belarus and Afghanistan.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is pleased to report that the Polish Aviation Works PZL Mielec plc is to manufacture twelve Black Hawk helicopters for Brunei Darussalam. A contact for the supply of the helicopters was signed by Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation.

The first meeting of the Community of Democracies Task Force for Moldova was held on 7 December 2011 in Washington. It is a new initiative of the Community of Democracies, aimed at supporting emerging democracy in Moldova. Poland and the United States co-chair the Task Force. The meeting was co-headed by Undersecretary of State Jerzy Pomianowski and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Senior Advisor for Civil Society and Emerging Democracies Tomicah Tillemann.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski will head the Polish delegation at the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting, due on 7 December 2011 in Brussels. The meeting’s programme includes a session of the North Atlantic Council which is to focus on the situation in Afghanistan, the Balkans, North Africa and the Middle East. The Foreign Ministers will also discuss the state of preparations for the NATO summit to be held in Chicago in May 2012.

The 18^th session of the Ministerial Council of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe takes place in Vilnius on 6-7 December 2011. The delegates are to review the OSCE activity in 2011 and outline the main directions for the coming year. A number of decisions are planned with respect to all three dimensions of the OSCE (political-military, economic and the human dimensions).

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski attended the international conference on Afghanistan ‘From Transition to Transformation’ on 5 December 2011 in Bonn. The conference came ten years after the signing of the first Bonn agreement on Afghanistan and was chaired by the Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The Consular Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in cooperation with the Ukrainian side, has been involved—for a period of time now—in the preparation to provide consular assistance during UEFA EURO 2012 and the efficient issuing of visas for football fans and UEFA EURO 2012 participants. The citizens of only two countries whose teams are to play in the Euro 2012: Russia and Ukraine, are required to have Polish visas. Poles and the citizens of the other EU Member States, on the other hand, do not need Ukrainian visas for the period of up to 90 days. However, they do need a valid passport to cross the border.

Secretary of State Mikołaj Dowgielewicz is to lead the Polish delegation today, 5 December, to the EU General Affairs Council (GAC) in Brussels.  The delegates will discuss the Presidency’s final progress report on the EU Multiannual Financial Framework. As a preparation for the 9 December European Council the Ministers and Secretaries of State for European Affairs are to discuss the Council’s draft conclusions.

Poland reiterates that it has fulfilled all the procedures necessary for the agreement between Belarus and Poland on local border traffic to come into effect, of which Poland has already informed Belarus in the diplomatic notes, dated 28 September 2010 and 13 June 2011. In May 2010 the Polish Parliament ratified the agreement on local border signed with Belarus on 12 February 2010, while on 17 September 2010 the agreement was signed by the President of the Republic of Poland.

The Polish media have yet again this year been sent emails containing documents which allegedly originated from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in particular containing the alleged correspondence between the Polish Foreign Ministry and its missions in Belarus. The correspondence was fabricated, as was the case previously, of which the media reported at length in March and May. On suspicion of the commission of crime, the case is being investigated by the relevant state services.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski is today, 1 December, chairing the EU-Georgia Cooperation Council in Brussels. The talks will cover a range of issues, including the cooperation between the European Union and Georgia, which has recently been on the increase, as well as Georgia’s participation in the EU Eastern Partnership programme.

Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski led the Polish delegation on 1 December 2011 to the Foreign Affairs Council (FAC) meeting in Brussels. The 1 December Foreign Affairs Council was preceded with a meeting on 30 November during which Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski and Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak discussed over dinner the FAC conclusions on the Common Foreign and Defence Policy.

A two-day conference ‘EU and Southern Neighborhood – New Prospects for Mutual Cooperation in a Changing Environment’ starts today at the Copernicus Science Centre in Warsaw.