{"id":442859,"date":"2026-01-13T11:52:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T10:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2026\/01\/13\/lungheria-ha-concesso-asilo-politico-ad-un-ex-ministro-polacco-plurindagato\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T12:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:40:31","slug":"hungary-grants-political-asylum-to-former-polish-minister-facing-multiple-investigations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2026\/01\/13\/hungary-grants-political-asylum-to-former-polish-minister-facing-multiple-investigations\/","title":{"rendered":"Hungary grants political asylum to former Polish minister facing multiple investigations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Hungary has granted political asylum to former Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, who is under investigation in his home country on 26 charges,<\/strong> including creating and leading a criminal organisation that allegedly misused 35.6 million euros in state funds. Viktor Orb\u00e1n’s government is thus supporting its ally, the sovereignist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which governed Poland from 2015 to 2023. <\/p>\n

As Minister of Justice, Ziobro was the architect of judicial reforms that sparked a long conflict<\/a> between Warsaw and Brussels over the rule of law, for which the country was ordered by the EU Court of Justice in 2021 to pay a daily fine of 1 million euros. Ziobro himself announced in a post on X that he had “decided to take advantage of the asylum granted to me by the Hungarian government due to political repression in Poland.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Among the 26 charges against the former minister is the misuse of state resources from the Justice Fund, dedicated to assisting crime victims. Furthermore, Ziobro  is accused of running a criminal group and using approximately 150 million zloty (over 35 million euros) to fund a system of political patronage and to purchase Pegasus spyware<\/strong>, which, according to media investigations, was used against members of the opposition. <\/p>\n

In November, the Polish Parliament \u2013 now with a narrow majority representing Donald Tusk’s pro-European government \u2013 approved the lifting of the former minister’s immunity<\/strong>, paving the way for his arrest. Ziobro left the country for Hungary a month before the vote. “I have decided to remain abroad until genuine guarantees of the rule of law are restored in Poland,” he said, personally thanking Prime Minister Orb\u00e1n for granting him asylum. <\/p>\n

\"Viktor<\/a>
Hungarian premier Viktor Orban and former Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\n

In a post<\/a> on X, Tusk commented sarcastically: “The former Minister of Justice(!), Mr. Ziobro, who was the mastermind of the political corruption system, has asked the government of Victor Orb\u00e1n for political asylum. A logical choice.” In 2024, after Mateusz Morawiecki’s PiS government was replaced by Tusk’s Civic Platform, Hungary granted political asylum to Marcin Romanowski,<\/strong> Ziobro’s number two at the Ministry of Justice.<\/p>\n

Within the EU, there is no real mechanism for political asylum between Member States, because one of the assumptions of the 12-star club is that “the level of protection of fundamental rights and freedoms must be guaranteed in each State.” There are exceptions whereby an EU citizen who fears persecution in their own country can apply for international protection in another Member State. To justify the slap at Warsaw, Hungarian Foreign Minister P\u00e9ter Szijj\u00e1rt\u00f3 said, “Democracy and the rule of law are currently under threat in Poland.”<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zbigniew Ziobro, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Poland in the governments led by the sovereignist PiS party between 2015 and 2023, is under investigation on 26 counts, including leading a criminal organisation to misuse state funds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7527,"featured_media":255351,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[31257,25833,32862,26140,25952,26302,32863],"class_list":["post-442859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-asilo-politico","tag-justice-en","tag-poland-and","tag-state-of-right-en","tag-zbigniew-ziobro"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7527"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442859"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":442862,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442859\/revisions\/442862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}