(ANSA-AFP) - WARSAW, 13 OTT - Poland on Tuesday threatened to use its veto for the EU budget and the coronavirus recovery fund, as part of a long-running row over criticism from Brussels of democratic standards in Poland. "There will be a veto," Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski told Gazeta Polska Codziennie, according to an extract from an interview to be published in full on Wednesday. "If the threats and blackmail are maintained, then we will firmly defend Poland's vital interest," said Kaczynski, head of the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party.

"This is how we will act against anyone who uses any extortion against us. I will repeat it again -- because I have already said it -- we are on the right side of history." The European Union last month criticised Poland and Hungary in its first report on democratic standards across the bloc, focusing in particular on the issue of judicial independence.

(ANSA-AFP).