Warsaw mayor says Poland risks leaving EU

Warsaw mayor Rafal Trzaskowski believes there is a possibility of Poland's exit from the European Union.

TASS reported that he voiced this opinion in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Periódico on May 30.

Asked whether, in his opinion, there was a possibility that the republic would leave the EU, he said: "I'm afraid so."

"I don't think that tomorrow the Polish government will say that it wants to leave the EU," he explained. "But if you keep attacking it, denying the rule of law, blaming Brussels for all your problems, and behaving so irresponsibly that the EU is blocking the funds you need, it creates a certain climate.

"They would probably go for a referendum, but so far they are creating the right climate by saying that we are not sovereign or that the EU is costing us too much money," the mayor of Warsaw clarified. "The danger is real."

He said some politicians in the ruling coalition were "openly against Europe" and were creating an "anti-European climate".

"It is true that [the chairman of Poland's ruling Law and Justice party, Jarosław] Kaczyński, wants to destroy the independence of the judiciary and many of our institutions," Trzaskowski believes. "Just a week ago, they launched a parliamentary enquiry into Russian influence in Poland, and now they want to try [former European Council President] Donald Tusk in a Bolshevik court, which could sentence him to 10 years."

At the same time, the mayor believes that "Hungary is even less democratic than Poland". "[Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor] Orban is an incredibly corrupt big cynic when it comes to money management, which cannot be said of Poland on the same scale," the mayor said.