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Polish, Hungarian PMs to discuss EU budget in Warsaw

30.11.2020 15:00
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is scheduled to visit Warsaw on Monday evening to discuss the European Union's new budget with his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki, a spokesman has announced, amid a dispute over a proposed link between EU funds and the rule of law.
Polands Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Hungarys Viktor Orban meet in Budapest on Nov. 26, 2020.
Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Hungary's Viktor Orban meet in Budapest on Nov. 26, 2020.Photo: PAP/Andrzej Lange

The main topic of the talks will be ongoing budget negotiations in the 27-nation bloc, of which Poland and Hungary have been members since 2004, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller told reporters.

"Today's working meeting is intended to discuss further steps in the context of EU budget negotiations and the upcoming European Council summit," Müller said.

The meeting comes after the Polish prime minister said on Friday he had reaffirmed Poland’s stance on the bloc’s spending plan for 2021-2027 during a telephone talk with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Morawiecki said on Facebook he had confirmed Warsaw’s “readiness to veto the new budget if we do not find a solution that is good for the entire EU, and not only for some of its members."

Poland and Hungary have both opposed the adoption of the European Union's 2021-2027 budget, voicing their criticism of a proposed mechanism to tie access to EU funds to respect for the rule of law.

Morawiecki on Thursday held talks in Budapest with Hungary's Orban, who has also lambasted the proposed new mechanism.

After that meeting, Poland’s prime minister warned that the proposal to tie access to cash from Brussels with the rule of law could lead to the EU breaking up.

Hungary's Orbán said this month his country vetoed the EU's new budget and post-coronavirus recovery fund because they would have forced it to accept immigration.

Poland's Morawiecki this month told EU leaders his country opposed the use of “non-objective criteria” to decide how much cash member states receive from Brussels.

Morawiecki earlier said in a letter to the bloc's leaders that his country could not accept a mechanism of this kind because it was based on “arbitrary and politically motivated criteria.”

He argued that such a system “could lead to sanctioning the application of double standards and different treatment of individual EU member states.”

Morawiecki's letter came after negotiators from the European Parliament and the German presidency of the EU this month reached an agreement on the rule of law mechanism for the bloc’s 2021-2027 budget.

In December 2017, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, took the unprecedented step of triggering Article 7 of the EU Treaty against Poland, stepping up pressure on Warsaw over contested judicial reforms.

Poland and Hungary have denied EU accusations of violating democratic principles and undermining the independence of their courts.

Most Poles are against the idea of linking access to EU funds to respect for the rule of law, a recent survey has found.

(gs)

Source: IAR