Marcin Romanowski is the highest-profile official to date targeted by an investigation into alleged criminality and cronyism under Poland’s previous nationalist-populist government.

Earlier on Thursday, Poland’s current centrist prime minister, Donald Tusk, warned that his Hungarian counterpart, nationalist Viktor Orbán, would be in a “difficult situation” if he granted asylum to Romanowski.

“Should Budapest take any odd decisions that would be inconsistent with European law, such as (granting) political asylum or ignoring the European arrest warrant, Victor Orbán would be the one in a difficult situation, not me,” Tusk said.

The asylum decision was confirmed by Gergely Gulyás, head of the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office.

A Warsaw court earlier in the day issued a European arrest warrant for Romanowski.

Relations between Warsaw and Budapest have deteriorated after a right-wing Polish government which had close ties with Orbán was ousted late last year and replaced by the administration of Tusk.

Romanowski’s lawyer, Bartosz Lewandowski, claimed the case against his client was politically motivated.

He added that Romanowski claimed in his asylum motion that he “cannot count on a fair trial in Poland due to the political involvement of some judges who openly support the current Minister of Justice.”

The lawyer said Romanowski submitted his request to “draw international attention to the political repression affecting opposition parties in Poland.”

Tusk’s supporters flatly reject such claims, arguing that the previous nationalist administration headed by the Law and Justice party misused public funds on a mass scale to further its own political aims, while eroding democratic norms and destroying the rule of law.

Tusk said that Orbán “is under the influence of [Law and Justice leader] Jarosław Kaczyński’s narrative when it comes to interpretation of events in Poland.”

WANTED LIST

Romanowski, who was a deputy justice minister from 2019 to 2023, faces charges including participation in an organized criminal group, rigging public funding competitions and embezzling over 107 million zloty (€25 million).

Polish prosecutors claim he directed staff to favor specific organizations in funding allocations and authorized grants to entities that failed to meet formal requirements.

Romanowski was added to Poland’s wanted list last week in the wake of a court decision to place him in pre-trial detention.

Police then searched Romanowski’s known addresses but could not find him.