Hungarian ambassador in custody after asylum for fugitive Polish politician 

This article was last updated on December 20, 2024

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Hungarian ambassador in custody after asylum for fugitive Polish politician

Poland has called home its ambassador to Hungary “indefinitely”. The country has also summoned the Hungarian ambassador to Warsaw.

The actions are a response to it message that Hungary grants asylum to Marcin Romanowski, Poland’s former deputy minister of justice. He is suspected of, among other things, embezzlement of government money. Earlier this week, a European arrest warrant was issued for him in Warsaw.

Romanowski gets asylum in Hungary because he would not get a fair trial in Poland. “The Polish government is using criminal law as a tool against political opponents,” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s chief of staff said.

Romanowski denies

Romanowski is a parliamentarian of the opposition Law and Justice party (PiS), a former ruling party in Poland. In that government, as Deputy Minister of Justice, he is said to have diverted 25 million euros from a fund for crime victims. Even Romanowski denies all accusations.

The politician from the right-wing conservative party was arrested this summer. A few days later he was released because he enjoyed immunity as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

That immunity has been in place since the fall cancelled. At the beginning of this month, a court ordered that the politician be arrested again. He has been wanted ever since.

Correspondent Christiaan Paauwe:

“Receiving political asylum in a fellow EU country is remarkable, but we have to carefully consider what is going on in the background here. PiS are friends of Orbán, Poland had a very warm relationship with Hungary at the time, they worked together within the EU. Now There is a new government in Poland that is clearly taking a different course. With this, Orbán seems to want to show that they are hitting back at the pro-European government in Warsaw.

It is a fairly unique situation: an EU member state offering political asylum to a politician from another member state. Poland believes that Hungary should listen to the arrest warrant. But if this man gets protection in Hungary, there is not much his homeland can do, experts say.

The question is what steps the government should now take to get him back in Poland. Romanowski’s lawyer has said he will remain in Hungary “until the rule of law is restored.” In the meantime, they can continue with the trial against Romanowski in Poland.

The relationship between Poland and Hungary has now cooled enormously. Prime Minister Tusk had also indicated that Orbán would get into trouble in the EU if he were to grant him political asylum. Foreign Minister Sikorski also calls it a ‘hostile decision’.”

The right-wing conservative party PiS had a majority in the Polish parliament for years, but lost it in last year’s elections. In addition, the pro-European Prime Minister Donald Tusk with its Civic Coalition and a number of other parties in power.

Since then, relations between the two countries have cooled. Tusk promised to investigate corruption under the previous government and restore Poland’s rule of law.