Poland's rightwing government has threatened to derail an EU summit Thursday on the bloc's post-Brexit future if its leaders go ahead and re-elect Pole Donald Tusk as the bloc's president despite Warsaw's opposition.
"We will inform our [EU] partners that the entire summit is at risk, if they will force the vote [on Tusk] today," Polish Foreign Minister Witold Waszczykowski told the local TVN24 channel on Thursday.
"We'll do everything we can to ensure that the vote won't take place today," Waszczykowski said, adding: "We have informed the Germans that it isn't necessary to elect the EU president today."
Speculating on the outcome of the two-day summit in Brussels, Polish media on Thursday outlined two possible scenarios.
First, Poland could demand that Tusk's re-election require unanimity. Current regulations require a qualified majority, but the principle of unanimity is generally favoured by the EU.
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This would derail Tusk's re-election for a second two-and-a-half year term.
Assuming Tusk is re-elected, Polish media suggest Warsaw would refuse to endorse the conclusions of the summit and thus torpedo it.
Poland's eurosceptic government on Saturday proposed MEP Jacek Saryusz-Wolski as its official candidate to replace Tusk.
Warsaw appears to have won no support, but the other leaders will still be keen to avoid a public bust-up with the EU's biggest post-communist state just weeks before the bloc enters its seventh decade.
