In fact, only presidents of the Slavic countries and the Baltic states did arrive to pay tribute to the late Polish president. Did the volcanic eruption effect German, French, Belgium, Spanish etc railways and motorways?
Pe Zahav
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I heard that the absence of many political leaders was due to the belch of the Icelandic volcano but I don't understand why they didn't go there using other means of transport...
♥ 乃乇尺尺ﾉ乇丂 ♥
There were so many people supposed to come but they called off their flight because of the volcano eruption.
Only people from the Slavic countries were able to come because they either took trains or drove by car.
The volcano had no effect on the railways or the motorways. It only caused the airports to close temporary since flying through the volcano ash is dangerous.
synchro_beagle
It affected pretty much everyone in Europe. I live in Poland and the frederic chopin airport is closed, and so it was very hard for any political leaders to make it. The volcanic ash really hit poland hard on Friday, and the funeral was on Sunday. So even if they couldv'e driven, there was no time.
Quote of the month (Canadian Press): "The Prime Minister's Office is acutely aware of the irony of loading a plane full of political leaders to fly through hazardous conditions to the memorial of a president who died flying through hazardous conditions to a memorial with a plane full of political leaders."
Cabal
When a head of state travel by air it is quite difficult to ambush the plane during the trip. Travelling 20+ hours by car and even more by train leaves the head of state extremely vulnerable to assassination attempts during some 1700 kms, or 2800 kms and 30+ hours for Spain by car. No security service will let it happen if the trip is too easy to guess. Even Angela Merkel who travelled by car as she tried to get there once back from her trip had an armoured car and noone knew her departure point and / or arrival point. And even she didn't make it.
As well, the refusal of Poland to push the funeral date by a day made it impossible for many of the head of states to arrive on time. Remember, when the European sky was closed on Thursday evening they were talking of reopening it on Friday evening, which would have given those people enough time to fly there. It didn't happen and there wasn't enough time to drive there. So no trip.
cupidtoo
Probably due to security issues with trains and driving the motorways, I would say flying was the only option and European skies have been shut down for several days due to the Icelandic volcano. A country cannot risk the life of their president, unfortunately, under any circumstances.