Poland’s President Karol Nawrocki has cancelled a planned meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán following Orbán’s trip to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The meeting was to take place on December 4 in Budapest, just a day after a Visegrad Group Summit between the Presidents of Hungary, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia.
Yesterday, Nawrocki’s foreign policy aide Marcin Przydacz said the Nawrocki will only attend the Visegrad gathering and will not meet with Orbán.
“In connection with the visit to Moscow carried out by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and its context, President Nawrocki decided to limit the programme of his visit to Hungary exclusively to the summit of the presidents of the Visegrád Group,” said Przydacz.
“President Nawrocki consistently advocates for seeking ways to end the war in Ukraine caused by Russia, but also believes that Europe’s security depends on solidarity, including in the field of energy,” he added.
Nawrocki’s press spokesman Rafał Leśkiewicz on the same day told commercial broadcaster TVN: “in view of what happened on Friday, the meeting between Prime Minister Orbán and the criminal Putin, it is obvious that the President has cancelled this visit and will not meet with Prime Minister Orbán.”
On November 28, the Hungarian PM met with Putin to secure supplies of Russian oil. Orbán reiterated Budapest’s offer to host peace talks between Russia, Ukraine and the US on his visit to Moscow, which was criticised by west European leaders.
Nawrocki is aligned with Poland’s opposition Conservatives (PiS), which has enjoyed good relations with Orbán as its members agree on identity issues, migration and the defence of sovereignty of EU member states. They have also backed US President Donald Trump but differ with the Hungarian PM regarding Russia.
Nawrocki, who was CEO of Poland’s National Institute of Memory (IPN), a body which investigates Second World War and Communist crimes, is persona non grata in Russia.
The PiS regards Russia as a major threat to Poland and Europe and has, during its time in government (2015-2023), backed Poland acting as a hub for humanitarian and military aid for Ukraine.
Orbán has refused to take sides in the war, has maintained close relations with Putin and opposed attempts to isolate Russia.
Those differences led to a cooling in relations between PiS and Hungary’s Fidesz party in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
More recently, though, the two sides had once again moved closer, with Orbán endorsing Nawrocki during this spring’s presidential election. In addition, Hungary granted sanctuary to two PiS politicians who were pursued on allegations of abuse of power by the current centre-left government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.
The Tusk government has clashed with Orbán over the latter’s blocking of European Union funds for military aid for Ukraine and over the asylum granted to the PiS politicians it is attempting to convict. The latter incident led Poland to recall its ambassador from Budapest.
In September, soon after Nawrocki had taken office, Orbán said he believed the new Polish President could help “rebuild Polish-Hungarian co-operation”. With the cancellation of the meeting by Nawrocki, though, those hopes appear to have been shelved.
The Tusk government welcomed the President cancelling his meeting with Orbán. Nawrocki and the Tusk administration, though, despite common ground on the war in Ukraine, remain in bitter conflict over the President’s refusal to sign off on appointments of members of the judiciary and security officials.
Not all political parties in Poland agreed with the President’s move. The Confederation’s party joint leader Krzysztof Bosak called Nawrocki’s decision “the politics of gesture”. He said there was “no point in isolating Orbán still further in the EU which was not in Poland’s interests”.
The Hungarian Government has not so far commented on Nawrocki’s decision. Foreign minister Péter Szijjártó, though, in a social media post on November 29, hit back at criticism of his Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow. “We Hungarians do not need permission or a mandate from Brussels, Berlin or anywhere else for any foreign negotiation,” he wrote on X.
The Hungarian press today reported the Polish cancellation of the planned meeting, with daily Nyugati Feny calling it “scandalous”.
Hodpress gave a more nuanced view, saying that Nawrocki has always supported Ukraine in its war with Russia but that he remained critical of Ukraine’s stance on some issues with regard to history and EU membership.
