The Polish Prime Minister defends a meeting of right-wing extremists What did he say?

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday defended the latest meeting of European populist leaders, saying his country was looking for allies in its "Central European" challenge.

Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Monday defended the latest meeting of European populist leaders, saying his country was looking for allies in its "Central European" challenge.

Morawiecki was responding to criticism of the meeting hosted by Poland's ruling conservative Law and Justice party on Saturday. Far-right politicians, including France's Marine Le Pen, and Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain's Vox party, were among those attending the meeting.

Referring to the many tensions between the Polish government and the EU's leading bodies, Morawiecki said during a press conference that his country is being treated unfairly and is taking "blows below the belt".

He explained that "he was looking for allies in this struggle against federal Europe, and against central Europe."

He said that the parties whose leaders met in Warsaw are "patriotic" and want "a Europe of homelands, and a strong European Union that draws its strength from the member states. And we want that."

But Morawiecki distanced himself from the comments made by Le Pen to the Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita".

Le Pen said Poland's neighbor "Ukraine belongs to Russia's sphere of influence."

Le Pen's comments run counter to the basic tenets of Poland's foreign and security policy through which Poland promotes and supports Kiev's aspirations to join the European Union.

“We don't need to agree on everything, we can disagree on many things like this issue,” Morawiecki said, adding that not everyone in the West necessarily understood the situation in Eastern Europe.

Opposition Senator Christophe Brega called Le Pen's comments "disgraceful" and "obscene", and called on Morawiecki to condemn them.