Poland's negotiations with the European Union on its budget and coronavirus recovery programme are not easy, but if the proposal that has been prepared is accepted it will be fine, ruling party leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski was quoted as saying by state-run news agency PAP on Thursday.
"The situation is not easy, complicated, but at the moment I think maybe it will be okay," Kaczynski was quoted as saying.
EU leaders are hoping to unblock on Thursday a stalled 1.8 trillion euro package to help revive the economy after the Covid-19 pandemic and agree on new, more ambitious CO2 emissions reduction goals to fight climate change.
European Central Bank leader Christine Lagarde on Thursday gave unusually clear signals that action is coming, saying there was “little doubt” the bank's 25-member governing council would use the meeting to “recalibrate” its support for the economy of the 19 EU countries that use the euro.
The focus of the talks has been on unblocking a historic joint EU borrowing of 750 billion euros to finance the post-pandemic recovery and the 1.1 trillion euro EU budget for 2021-2027.
Agreeing on the money is one of the conditions set for a deal on a proposal that the EU cut greenhouse gas emissions by 55 percent by 2030 compared to 1990 levels rather than the currently agreed goal of 40 percent.
Poland and Hungary have been blocking the financial package because access to the money is, for the first time, to be linked to respecting the rule of law. Since Warsaw and Budapest are under EU probes for undermining the independence of courts and media, they are at risk of losing billions from the EU.
But Germany, which holds the rotating presidency of the 27-country bloc until the end of the year, struck a deal with the two countries that will allow them to lift their veto.
Under the deal, EU leaders will issue a declaration, stating that the rule-of-law link to funds will be applied objectively and only to safeguard the proper use of EU money, rather than to punish countries under the separate EU rule-of-law probes.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
