To the outrage of other EU member states, Poland vetoed the introduction of a minimum tax for large multinationals. The tax measure is part of a package that also blocks €18 billion in aid to Ukraine, a reduction in the EU subsidy penalty for Hungary and that country’s coronavirus recovery plan. European correspondent from Brussels Ria Cast of FD suspects horse trading.
Because what does Poland want to achieve with this? According to Cats, there is a suspicion that Poland will use the veto to put the krone recovery billions to work. Poland is entitled to €36 billion from the recovery fund, but the EU believes that the country has not made sufficient progress in restoring the rule of law, an important condition for receiving such recovery support.
And with that, Poland is doing what Hungary did earlier this week, and for which it was effectively “rewarded”; veto one issue to get the better of another dossier. “A sort of horse swap. Hungary received that concession, it seems that now Poland is taking over that baton.
The countries are due to meet in a one-day summit today to resolve the issues, but Cats is not hopeful. “It’s just the big question. Initially the intention was to make it a two-day summit, but in the end they thought it could be done in one day. But now that’s been added, so it will still be an overnight job. Maybe even up in the early hours of Friday.”
Ruth
According to Cats, Prime Minister Mark Rutte finds the situation “very annoying”. “He won’t say it out loud, because he knows he’ll add fuel to the fire,” he continues. «He Then he will have Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán against him, or Polish Prime Minister Morawiecki. It’s happened once before, and even those countries do it for a kind of internal score.’
He points out that Rutte is in exactly the same boat, “because this is also a popular topic in the Netherlands.” “But in reality he is completely annoyed by the attitude of Poland and Hungary in matters of the rule of law, because they seem to aim only at obtaining so many subsidies, while in the meantime they ignore the European agreements on the independence of the judiciary and the fight against corruption” .
Source: BNR
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