A diplomatic row has erupted between Poland and Hungary following Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s speech in Romania. According to RMF24, Orbán criticized what he deemed as flawed policies of the EU and accused Poland of hypocrisy in its dealings with Russia.
Pro-Russian Hungarian leader Orbán consistently opposes the EU’s collective military aid to Ukraine. His country has refused to send weapons to Kyiv and remains the sole EU state maintaining ties with the Kremlin since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In response to Orbán, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski strongly rebutted Orbán’s claims. As reported by PAP, Bartoszewski stated,
“We do not do business with Russia, unlike Prime Minister Orbán, who is on the margins of international society – both in the European Union and NATO.”
RMF24 quoted Bartoszewski questioning Hungary’s continued EU membership:
“I don’t really understand why Hungary wants to remain a member of organizations that it doesn’t like so much and which supposedly treat it so badly,” he said, suggesting, “Why doesn’t [Orbán] create a Union with Putin and some authoritarian states of this type?”
The Polish diplomat emphasized that Orbán’s speech was negatively received by the US ambassador to Budapest, describing it as “an attack on Poland, the USA, the European Union and NATO.“
Bartoszewski highlighted Orbán’s blocking of 2 billion PLN ($505 million) in EU refunds owed to Poland for military equipment transferred to Ukraine.
The dispute has further strained the relationship between the two countries. RMF24 quoted Bartoszewski as saying,
“There used to be a saying ‘Poles and Hungarians are two nephews’, but this is a big family quarrel.”
Orbán had also accused Poland of altering the balance of power in Europe by weakening the Berlin-Paris axis in favor of a new configuration including London, Warsaw, Kyiv, and the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, which he claimed weakens the Visegrád Group.
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