BUDAPEST (Reuters) -Hungary and Poland are upholding their veto of the next European Union budget and a coronavirus recovery fund, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said after meeting his Polish counterpart in Brussels on Monday.
“We have affirmed that we stand by each other,” Szijjarto said in a Facebook video. “We will not give room to any effort aiming to break up this co-operation.”
Warsaw and Budapest, both under EU scrutiny for undermining judicial and media independence, are blocking the budget and the recovery fund because they object to making the money conditional on respect for the rule of law and democratic norms.
Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Pawel Jablonski, told private broadcaster Polsat News his country had not changed its stance either.
“… the prime minister made it very clear that we would not agree to any solutions that would not guarantee respecting our rights, would not give us a guarantee that we are safe, that the rights that are set out in the EU treaty are respected,” he said.
“If there is an agreement that guarantees these rights, then we will agree. A veto is a tool,” he added.
(Reporting by Gergely Szakacs; Additional reporting by Anna Koper in Warsaw; Editing by Toby Chopra and Alison Williams)
