EPAPoland has accused Hungary of acting in a hostile manner by granting political asylum to a former Polish deputy justice minister accused of defrauding the state.
Marcin Romanowski, 48, faces 11 charges in Poland, including defrauding or attempting to defraud $40m (£32m; €39m) from a justice fund meant to help victims of crime when he was a deputy -Minister of Justice under the previous Law and Justice-led government between 2019 and 2023.
“We believe that the decision of Viktor Orbán's government to grant political asylum to M. Romanowski, suspected of crimes and wanted on a European arrest warrant, is an act hostile to the Republic of Poland and the principles of the European Union,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote to X on Thursday evening.
“Tomorrow we will announce our decisions.
On Friday, the foreign ministry said it was summoning Hungary's ambassador to the country and would ask the European Commission to open proceedings against Budapest if it failed to fulfill its obligations to the EU.
Mr Romanowski was in charge of the justice fund under the previous government, which lost power in the 2023 election.
An audit found that only 40% of the funds went to rehabilitating crime victims and ex-prisoners and that contracts were awarded at the minister's discretion without a proper competitive process.
Romanowski denies the allegations.
He fled to Hungary, saying he would not get a fair trial in his homeland because of politicized prosecutors and judges under Poland's current pro-EU coalition government under Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
Such reasoning has been derided by those in power, given that the Law and Justice government in which Mr Romanovsky serves has been widely condemned by international judicial bodies, the European Commission and European courts for introducing reforms that politicize the judiciary. system.
Mr. Tusk's government is trying to reverse this reform because it created a two-tier judiciary of judges appointed under Law and Justice and older judges, some of whom do not recognize the new judges because they consider their appointments illegal.
ReutersAs of Thursday evening, the 48-year-old opposition lawmaker had been missing for nearly two weeks.
He has reportedly not used his phones or bank cards since December 6 and failed to attend a court hearing three days later that ordered his pre-trial detention.
On Thursday, a European arrest warrant was issued by a Warsaw court based on information from prosecutors that he had fled to an EU country.
There was speculation that Mr. Romanovsky was hiding in Hungary.
On Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said the current Polish government was treating Hungary as an enemy and he would offer asylum to anyone facing political persecution in Poland.
Mr Orban and Poland's Law and Justice party share ideological goals, although they fell out over Russia's invasion and war on Ukraine.
They generally agree that what they see as the EU's liberal elite is pushing Europe away from its Christian traditions and undermining the sovereignty of member states.
Mr Romanowski is reported to be a member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, which denied earlier this week that the MP had been hidden by them.
In October 2022 he told a Polish Catholic radio station that LGBT+ is “institutionalized deviance.”
A year later, he advocated the death penalty, even for minors, after a 16-year-old boy was beaten to death by teenagers.