{"id":10227,"date":"2017-03-09T22:21:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/poland-left-isolated-after-tusk-row-at-eu-summit\/"},"modified":"2017-03-09T22:21:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T22:21:12","slug":"poland-left-isolated-after-tusk-row-at-eu-summit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/poland-left-isolated-after-tusk-row-at-eu-summit\/","title":{"rendered":"Poland left isolated after Tusk row at EU summit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"DonaldImage copyright Reuters
Image caption Donald Tusk was re-elected in a 27-1 vote <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo made no attempt to disguise her fury at the reappointment of fellow Pole Donald Tusk to steer EU policy for another 30 months.<\/p>\n

By refusing to endorse the EU summit's final statement, she told reporters, Poland would make it invalid.<\/p>\n

Poland's move is rare, but not unprecedented at EU summits. On occasion the UK, too, has taken a principled stand against the majority.<\/p>\n

No crucial EU decisions hang on Friday's conclusions, and this protest makes Poland look very isolated in the EU. <\/p>\n

Even Hungary - a close ally of Poland's nationalist government - decided to vote for Mr Tusk.<\/p>\n

The EU leaders can still put out a joint statement, though it will have less legal weight than the normal conclusions.<\/p>\n

Image copyright Reuters
Image caption Beata Szydlo said there was no place for a "multi-speed Europe" <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The row has soured the atmosphere, just as the EU prepares to mark 60 years since its founding Treaty of Rome was signed. <\/p>\n

European unity is the theme of their talks on Friday - now overshadowed by the Polish flare-up. <\/p>\n

And with the Brexit process looming, the UK will be absent.<\/p>\n

Marcin Antosiewicz, a reporter for Polish commercial WP TV, said the dispute over Mr Tusk "is about domestic policy - it's not about the EU".<\/p>\n

A recent CBOS opinion poll in Poland suggested that 52% of Poles rated Mr Tusk as a good EU leader, against 36% who were negative about him.<\/p>\n

The EU Commission suspects Poland's nationalist government of violating EU rule of law principles, over its changes to Poland's constitutional court and restrictions on the media. <\/p>\n

Ominously, Ms Szydlo also warned the EU that "there is no place for a multi-speed Europe" - contradicting what the leaders of France, Germany and Italy said in Versailles this week. <\/p>\n

She also criticised the EU for preventing a "blocking minority" when key decisions are taken - a rule change brought in to speed up EU business. <\/p>\n

"We can't accept this selective approach - we demand equal rights. Until this is understood as a principle the crisis will continue," she warned.<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image copyright ReutersImage caption Donald Tusk was re-elected in a 27-1 vote Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo made no attempt to disguise her fury at the reappointment of fellow Pole<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}