By Barbara Erling and Gergely Szakacs<\/p>\n
WARSAW, May 19 (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar begins a two-day visit to Poland on Tuesday, his first tour abroad since taking office, a trip rich in symbolism for a leader \u200cwho is seeking to steer his nation back towards the European mainstream.<\/p>\n
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whom Magyar meets \u200con Wednesday, led a pro-European coalition to power in Poland in 2023, mending ties with Brussels and unblocking billions of dollars in funds frozen over rule of law \u200bconcerns.<\/p>\n
It’s a feat Magyar is seeking to emulate after he won a landslide victory over nationalist Viktor Orban in April, a result which Tusk portrayed as a blow to authoritarian rule and part of a shift in Central European politics away from eurosceptic nationalism.<\/p>\n
Relations between Warsaw and Budapest had deteriorated into outright hostility as Tusk and Orban clashed over the Hungarian leader’s confrontational approach to Ukraine and warm relations \u200cwith Russia.<\/p>\n
The visit is seen primarily as a \u2060symbolic reset after a period of effectively frozen contacts, aimed at reopening dialogue on European issues and Ukraine, a Polish government official said.<\/p>\n
“It is very clear that they want to restore relations with Poland to \u2060a very good level,” the official added. “These are, I would say, gestures showing a return to the best traditions of strong bilateral ties.”<\/p>\n
FROM SOUTH TO NORTH<\/p>\n
Magyar’s visit will take him across Poland, from Krakow in the south to the capital Warsaw and then the Baltic port city of \u200bGdansk.<\/p>\n
Magyar \u200bsaid on Monday he will travel by train to Warsaw on Tuesday \u200bevening on “a high-speed rail line built with EU funding – \u200cby the ‘evil Brussels’,” alluding to Orban’s anti-EU rhetoric.<\/p>\n
He said his decision to test out the Polish rail network came in the context of a desire to eventually build a high-speed link between Warsaw and Budapest.<\/p>\n
Magyar will be accompanied by a host of ministers including Foreign Minister Anita Orban, Economy and Energy Minister Istvan Kapitany, Transport and Investment Minister David Vitezy and Defence Minister Romulusz Ruszin-Szendi.<\/p>\n
“The areas of responsibility of the participating ministers naturally shape the direction of the talks,” Magyar said.<\/p>\n
ENERGY HIGH ON THE AGENDA<\/p>\n
Magyar has pledged to end \u200cHungary’s dependence on Russian energy by 2035 and energy will be on the \u200bagenda in Poland.<\/p>\n
“This is a priority issue for both countries, with the oil \u200bcrisis being a major challenge,” Magyar said.<\/p>\n
Warsaw plans to \u200boffer Budapest access to U.S. LNG via a new Gdansk terminal due to start operations in 2028, a \u200csource with knowledge of the matter said. Orlen has \u200balready been selling U.S. LNG to \u200bUkraine.<\/p>\n
Warsaw also plans to discuss support of Ukraine, as well as the future framework of cooperation in the Visegrad group of central European nations, officials said.<\/p>\n
Hungary’s government wants Poland’s backing in talks on unblocking EU funds, as both countries had \u200bsimilar rule-of-law disputes.<\/p>\n
“The decision has not yet been \u200ctaken and will clearly be political as well as procedural, which is why this backing is crucial for \u200bBudapest,” said Wojciech Przybylski of the Visegrad Insight think-tank.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Barbara Erling and Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw, Gergely Szakacs \u200bin Budapest, Additional reporting by Alan Charlish; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Barbara Erling and Gergely Szakacs WARSAW, May 19 (Reuters) – Hungary’s Prime Minister Peter Magyar begins a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1156,64,354,6414,366,9,371,45],"class_list":["post-7455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-budapest","tag-donald-tusk","tag-hungary","tag-minister-anita-orban","tag-peter-magyar","tag-poland","tag-viktor-orban","tag-warsaw"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}