Hungary sparks dispute with Poland by granting asylum to ex-minister

Poland has accused Hungary of hostile behavior by granting political asylum to a former Polish deputy justice minister accused of state fraud.

Marcin Romanowski, 48, is charged in Poland with 11 charges, including defrauding or attempting to defraud $40 million (£32 million; 39 million euros) from a justice fund designed to help victims of crime, when he was under was Deputy Minister of Justice under the previous law and the justice-led government between 2019 and 2023.

“We consider the decision of the government of Viktor Orban, M. Romanowski, to grant political asylum to a crime suspect wanted under a European arrest warrant as an act hostile to the Republic of Poland and the principles of the European Union. Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski wrote on X on Thursday evening.

“Tomorrow we will announce our decisions.”

On Friday, the Foreign Ministry said it would summon Hungary’s ambassador to the country and ask the European Commission to open proceedings against Budapest if the country fails to meet its EU obligations.

Mr. Romanowski was in charge of the justice fund under the previous government, which lost power in the 2023 election.

An audit found that only 40% of the fund’s resources went to crime victims and the rehabilitation of former prisoners and that contracts were awarded at the minister’s discretion without a proper competitive process.

Mr Romanowski denies the allegations.

He fled to Hungary, saying he would not receive a fair trial in his home country because of the politicization of prosecutors and judges under Poland’s current pro-EU coalition government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

That argument was derided by government officials as the Law and Justice-led government in which Mr. Romanowski served was widely condemned by international judicial bodies, the European Commission and European courts for introducing reforms that politicized the judiciary.

Mr. Tusk’s government is trying to reverse this reform because it has created a two-tier judicial system of judges appointed on the basis of law and justice and senior judges, some of whom do not recognize the new judges because of their consider appointments to be unlawful.

Law and Justice and Mr. Romanowski have accused the current government of making illegal judicial appointments in its efforts to reverse this reform.

As of Thursday evening, the 48-year-old opposition MP had not been seen for almost two weeks.

He reportedly had not used his phone or bank card since December 6 and three days later did not attend a court hearing where it was decided that he should be remanded in custody before trial.

On Thursday, a Warsaw court issued a European arrest warrant based on information from prosecutors that he had fled to an EU country.

There was speculation that Mr. Romanowski had gone into hiding in Hungary.

On Thursday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said the current Polish government was treating Hungary as an enemy and that he would provide refuge to anyone facing political persecution in Poland.

Mr Orban and Poland’s Law and Justice party share ideological goals, although they have disagreed over the Russian invasion and war on Ukraine.

They broadly agree that what they see as the EU’s liberal elite is alienating Europe from its Christian traditions and undermining the sovereignty of member states.

Mr Romanowski is reportedly a member of the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, which earlier this week denied the MP was being hidden by them.

In October 2022, he told a Polish Catholic radio station that LGBT+ was “institutionalized deviance.”

A year later, he supported the death penalty for minors after a 16-year-old boy was beaten to death by teenagers.