Poland and Hungary had blocked the EU budget over a provision requiring each member nation to uphold the bloc's rule-of-law principles. The two nations are under investigation for not doing so.
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Rob Schmitz is NPR's international correspondent based in Berlin, where he covers the human stories of a vast region reckoning with its past while it tries to guide the world toward a brighter future. From his base in the heart of Europe, Schmitz has covered Germany's levelheaded management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the rise of right-wing nationalist politics in Poland and creeping Chinese government influence inside the Czech Republic.