Extra summit may be needed to unblock EU budget – Polish PM

WARSAW/BUDAPEST (Reuters) – The European Union may need to hold an extra summit to secure agreement on its planned economic recovery fund and budget, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Tuesday.

Poland and Hungary are blocking 1.8 trillion euros ($2.18 trillion) in funding because they oppose a clause linking the release of funds to the rule of law.

EU leaders will try to resolve the dispute at a summit that starts on Thursday in Brussels but Morawiecki gave no sign that Budapest and Warsaw would back down.

“It may happen that another summit will be necessary… maybe there will be more long months of negotiations and a possible provisional budget. No scenarios should be ruled out at this stage,” he told a news conference in Warsaw.

A Polish government spokesman said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban would meet Morawiecki and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, leader of Poland’s governing nationalist party, in Warsaw later on Tuesday but gave no details.

The European Commission, the EU executive, has criticised the two countries over policies which it says limit media freedoms and the independence of the judiciary.