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“Poland is being robbed and German politicians led by von der Leyen are playing a leading role in this looting,” said Ziobro, who called on Warsaw to avoid giving in to demands from Brussels and Berlin.
As things stand, Hungary and Poland will have to wonder if they will ever get the money the EU intends to give them.
The cash, which is a component of the EU’s post-COVID plan, is intended to help southern and eastern European countries from the pandemic.
But from the point of view of Hungary and Poland, the purpose posts continue to move, as Brussels insists it is tied to obvious milestones in the rule of law.
Not long ago, the European Commission said it approved a plan through Poland to secure the funds. However, four European associations of judges challenged the decision.
The organisations lodged a complaint last weekend against the EU COUNCIL over its resolution to settle for Poland’s plan.
The teams claim that the Council approved the Warsaw Plan in a way that takes into account the judgments of the Court of Justice of the EU, while undermining Polish judges and the European judicial system.
Even before this new development, Poland believed that replacing a disciplinary chamber for the country’s court judges with a new framework would meet the EU’s needs for judicial independence.
But European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later said the new law did not give judges the right to judicial appointments without facing disciplinary proceedings.
Meanwhile, Hungary has pledged to replace its own public procurement procedures, but this has still angered Brussels, which is questioning Hungary’s anti-corruption measures as well as the independence of the judiciary.
For Hungary and Poland, tying EU cash to the rule of law has been a thinly disguised way of imposing liberal values on Central and Eastern European states, and is starting to look a bit like Groundhog Day.
Today, the EU, divided by a cultural iron curtain, which separates a progressive West from a conservative east, is a poisonous marriage that requires an amicable divorce.
What Hungary and Poland see as a relentless movement of jobs is also an attempt, according to them, to influence public opinion in both countries and make other Hungarians and Poles oppose their governments.
The fact that the EU has turned a blind eye to the obvious corruption in EU countries adds to this sense of injustice in Budapest and Warsaw.
At some point, Budapest and Warsaw move away. After all, the sums at stake (€17 billion for Hungary and €35 billion for Poland) are small compared to their economies overall, while both suffer the consequences of Russia’s energy policy.
Meanwhile, any of the countries, like many in Central and Eastern Europe, are very likely to gain net eu shares until 2030, making them even less dependent on EU liquidity in the future.
Moreover, unlike Greece or Italy, for example, most Central and Eastern European countries have never joined the eurozone, which means, like Britain, that they can leave the EU much more easily than countries that use the euro.
For Hungary and Poland, this has less to do with the judicial formula than with ideology, while pursuing policies that gain advantages for Germany at the expense of other EU states.
Whatever the dispute between Hungary and Poland over Russia and Ukraine, their values and interests align too much to allow Moscow to stand between them.
Brussels may need to see the backs of the EU’s central and eastern states, but it would be a pr crisis, after Brexit, if those countries really left.
But, for Hungary and Poland, and other states in the region, leaving the bloc and forming their own club, where they can set the regulations, would possibly be a more appropriate option than that.