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Polish, Hungarian PMs to meet

PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk 14.05.2018 08:00
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was due to meet his visiting Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban in Warsaw on Monday.
PM Mateusz MorawieckiPM Mateusz MorawieckiPhoto: Tracz/KPRM (Public Domain)

It was expected to be the first meeting of the two leaders since the landslide victory of Orban’s Fidesz party in Hungary’s parliamentary elections. Orban last month won a third consecutive term in power.

Poland and Hungary are close allies in the European Union. Both have been accused by critics or eroding democratic checks and balances, charges which they have denied. Both countries have been critical of Brussels’ policies on issues such as migration.

Orban voiced gratitude to Poland’s leaders for their support after his election win.

Rule of law

Monday will also see ministers for European affairs meeting in Brussels and discussing Poland’s alleged breach of rule-of-law principles.

The ministers will be presented with an update by the deputy head of the European Commission, Frans Timmermans, on talks he has conducted with Poland amid a long-standing dispute with Brussels.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the 28-nation European Union, in December took the unprecedented step of triggering Article 7 of the EU Treaty against Poland, stepping up pressure on Warsaw over controversial changes to the justice system by the country’s ruling conservatives.

The move meant that the EU’s executive wanted the bloc’s member states to declare that the rule of law in Poland was under threat. That could potentially pave the way for sanctions being imposed on Poland.

But penalties on Warsaw would have to be backed unanimously by EU member states, while Hungary has said it would not support sanctions.

The Polish government has since moved to modify the disputed legal changes that set it on a collision course with Brussels.

Plane crash monument in Budapest

Morawiecki and Jarosław Kaczyński, the head of Poland's ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party, last month unveiled a monument in Budapest commemorating the 2010 crash of a Polish presidential plane in Smolensk, western Russia, which killed all 96 on board.

The monument is entitled Memento for Smolensk and is dedicated to Polish-Hungarian friendship.

(pk/gs)

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