Poland did not invite the Hungarian ambassador to Warsaw, István Íjgyártó, nor Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to Friday’s gala evening in Warsaw’s Grand Theatre, which will be the ceremonial opening of its six-month presidency in the Council of the EU. The reason for this is the dispute related to Budapest’s recent decision to grant asylum to former Polish Deputy Minister of Justice Marcin Romanowski, who was issued a European arrest warrant on corruption charges in December.
“When we invited guests to our gala almost a month ago, we invited the entire diplomatic corps,” Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Magdalena Sobkowiaková-Czarnecká said on Friday. “But after the incident with (former) Deputy Romanowski, Minister (Foreign Affairs) Sikorski decided, that the Hungarian ambassador is not a welcome guest in the theater today,” she added.
They disagree on several things
On January 1, Poland took over the rotating six-month presidency of the Council of the European Union precisely from Hungary, with which it disagreed on several issues. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticized Orbán for his stance on the war in Ukraine and his so-called pro-Russian policy. Orbán, on the other hand, claimed in Hungarian media that Tusk’s government considers Hungarians to be enemies.
In addition to Tusk, the president of the European Council, António Costa, will also speak at Friday’s gala dinner.
Romanowski was deputy minister of justice in the government of the Law and Justice party (PiS) and later a member of parliament. He is accused of committing 11 crimes, including the embezzlement of 25 million euros from the ministry’s special-purpose reserve for victims of crimes and the attempted embezzlement of another 13.56 million euros.
The Sejm stripped him of parliamentary immunity, the police arrested him in July. However, Romanowski was soon released from custody, as he still had immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which then took it away from him in October. The Polish court subsequently issued a European arrest warrant against him, as he avoided court proceedings. Hungary granted him asylum shortly before Christmas.
It’s pathetic and childish
Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Péter Szijjártó described the non-invitation of Hungarian representatives to Friday’s gala evening in Warsaw on the occasion of the beginning of Poland’s six-month presidency in the Council of the European Union as “pathetic” and “childish”. With reference to the 24.hu server, the correspondent of TASR in Budapest informs about it.
“As for the decision of my Polish colleague, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Radoslaw Sikorský, TASR note), two words come to mind: pathetic and childish,” the server quotes the head of Hungarian diplomacy.
