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Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki sent a letter to the EU institutions threatening to veto the EU bloc’s 2021-2027 budget if access to EU funds is conditional on governments’ rule of law, Reuters reports.
The letter, similar to the one sent earlier by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, was sent to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Council Charles Michel and the German presidency of the EU, second agerpres.ro.
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A spokesperson for the Commission confirmed the receipt of the letter and the essence of its content.
Both Poland and Hungary are under investigation by the EU for violating the independence of courts, media and non-governmental organizations.
By making the allocation of funds to the rule of law, after lengthy negotiations between the European Parliament and the German EU presidency, both countries risk losing billions of euros in EU funding.
Cross compliance is a major concern of the European Parliament and of several Northern European countries, such as the Netherlands, which wanted these conditions to be even stricter.
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Poland and Hungary have the power to veto the EU budget in the long term and thus prevent any member state from obtaining EU funding.
But it would also affect the two countries, the big beneficiaries of this budget, where many supporters of the ruling nationalist parties depend largely on direct EU subsidies.
“Without sufficient guarantees that the rights deriving from the treaties of the member states will be respected, we do not see the possibility of ratifying the budget in the Polish parliament,” Morawiecki wrote in the letter, according to an official.
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Some officials said, however, that the letter was sent ahead of a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Wednesday, during which the Polish ambassador said Warsaw is still reflecting on the matter.
The regulation linking EU payments to the rule of law will likely be voted on by EU ambassadors next week and could be approved by the so-called qualified majority.
But the budget and the accompanying documents – the own resources decision – require unanimity. Both will likely be voted on in the next few weeks, possibly next week as well.
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