Poland's president, Lech Kaczyński, who died in a plane crash in Smolensk on 10 April and will be laid to rest with his wife in Krakow today, paid the first official visit to Hungary after his inauguration in December 2005, on 24 March 2006.

The first man of Poland, a nation with which Hungary has maintained friendly relations for centuries, was received by Hungary's President László Sólyom in Budapest's Sándor Palace, after which the two presidents travelled to Győr to unveil the first public monument commemorating the friendship between Poland and Hungary.

The two state dignitaries signed the agreement for the general safeguarding of secrecy between Poland and Hungary at their meeting on the Friday morning of the visit, and the Polish head of state placed flowers in Kossuth Square at the monument to the victims of the events of 25 October 1956.

While Viktor Orbán found the time to meet Kaczyński, the first man of Poland, who is regarded as Hungary's priority strategic partner, Ferenc Gyurcsány's chief press officer at the time, László Boglár, said that the prime minister was unable to receive Poland's president due to his engagement in Brussels on the Friday.

Neither a single member of the Gyurcsány government, nor MSZP parliamentary speaker Katalin Szili had the time to receive Kaczyński. Information obtained from Warsaw pertinent to this time clearly shows that all the efforts exerted by Polish diplomacy to make the meeting happen were doomed to failure.

However, Ferenc Gyurcsány "was no longer in Brussels" at 6:15 p.m. on 24 March since he was occupied with the reception of Romania's president, Calin-Popescu Tariceanu, in the Parliement's Nándorfehérvár Hall. At this time Lech Kaczyński was still in Hungary.