The EU budget commissioner has warned Poland and Hungary that Brussels is ready to cut them out of the recovery fund and proceed with the project without them if they continue to block Europe’s upcoming budget. Johannes Hahn said Warsaw and Budapest “cannot stop us from helping our citizens” as he confirmed that the commission’s lawyers had identified possible ways of circumventing the two capitals’ objections to the EU’s spending plans.
His intervention, in a Financial Times interview, steps up the pressure on the two countries as they block the planned €750bn pandemic recovery fund as well as the EU’s seven-year budget. Both countries object to a new rule of law mechanism that they claim unfairly targets their nations, a stand that has thrown the EU’s July spending deal into jeopardy. Mr 1–lahn said Warsaw and Budapest would not succeed in blocking the recovery fund and that if they continued to wield their vetoes it would “backfire” on their citizens by severely reducing flows of EU money to the two countries.
“In the case of a veto, either from Poland or from Hungary, the so-called provisional budget will come into force,” he said after a meeting with officials in Brussels, according to Poland’s state news agency PAP. “Despite what some voices in the Polish public debate are saying, this would not be beneficial for Poland, or for each of the remaining 26 member states.”
“It seems to me that . . . a compromise is possible, even if not in the form of reopening the discussion on the form of this regulation [on the rule of law mechanism], then in the form of binding interpretative declarations. ”
Mr Gowin added that an “interpretative declaration” could be prepared by the legal service of the commission, but would have to be confirmed by the European Council. He said it would need to make clear the rule of law mechanism would not be used to “put unjustified pressure on specific countries in questions other than the honest use of EU funds”.
The stand-off over the budget is set to dominate a Brussels leaders’ summit scheduled for Thursday and Friday next week. Mr Hahn said the commission’s focus was on striking an agreement with Warsaw and Budapest, but he added: “We are fully aware of our responsibilities; that is why we have already started on alternatives.”