The head of Poland's Civic Coalition party, which leads a bloc holding the parliamentary majority after the recent elections, pointed out the damages that may be inflicted by Hungary's further drift towards Russia:
"Speaking about Orbán - we are now dealing with a government that openly switched to a pro-Russian position and is not hiding it. We are dealing with a government which threatens to block the European Union resolutions, and his actions may deprive us of 800 million euro. This is the amount the EU is due to refund for Poland's military help provided for Ukraine. We were supposed to get these funds in return - but Orbán is blocking them now."
- Donald Tusk said, the Polish PAP news agency reported.
The Civic Coalition leader is expected to form a new government and take up the Prime Minister role if the current PM Mateusz Morawiecki fails to receive the vote of confidence for his cabinet on Monday. Tusk addressed the Hungarian issue - and many others - at a press briefing that followed his Friday meeting with the "future ministers" from his bloc.
When asked if he plans to negotiate with the Hungarian Prime Minister as the new head of the Polish government, Tusk said:
"I would not overestimate my influence on Viktor Orbán. As one can easily guess, we are not close to each other politically today. I will certainly present a very firm stance at the European Council meeting - and I believe that the majority of European leaders will now start to respect Poland's position on the matters of both Ukraine and Orban's Hungary. I will try to change the Hungarian Prime Minister's approach, but let's be honest - his relationship with Moscow and Putin is organic, and I don't think my efforts can significantly change Orbán's attitude."
As Politico website informed, Orbán wrote a letter to the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, urging him to exclude discussing macro-financial assistance to Ukraine and Ukraine's EU accession from the upcoming EU summit's agenda. Later, an EU spokesman said that "Michel would cut short his trip to China as the Hungarian Prime Minister threatened to disrupt a summit of EU leaders at the end of this year" - Ukraine's UKRinform news agency reported.
On December 14, the European Council is expected to consider the issue of launching Ukraine's EU accession negotiations.
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Sources: PAP, Politico, UKRinform, TVN24, Gazeta.pl