He said: “Poland received EUR 175 billion of structural assistance since 2004.
“Maybe they do not know, because they do not say that thanks to Juncker’s plan but they managed to invest 18.3 billion euros in the development of small enterprises.”
He urged Poland to dismiss calls for a Polexit – a Polish exist from the European Union and said: “Poles do not want to be cut off from all this.”
In the same interview the 64-year-old ex-Luxembourg Prime Minister attacked Britain for failing to embrace European values and only seeing EU membership in terms of financial or business opportunity.
He added: “But in the West, we should not think that Poland is in the Union for money! Poland is with us because we share common values. Our help is not a gift, but a recognition of the magnitude of the reforms carried out.”
Mr Juncker was further pushed by a reporter for the newspaper Rzeczpospolita that he had ignored central Europe and especially the four members of the so-called Visegrád Group – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.
Again he suggested he had not received the credit and thanks due and added: “I would like to remind you that when I decided to expand the Union, I was this great advocate. Only nobody remembers it!”
“I am not able to count how many bilateral meetings I have had with the current Polish prime minister.
The Prime Minister always then reported that I said this or that, that in one way or another I assessed Timmermans. But if so, how can you say that I am not interested in Poland!”
But he later conceded he could have visited Warsaw more often and said: But actually – during my term of office I was only once in Poland, it is not enough.”
Yesterday Mr Juncker incensed many British people as he hit out at British democracy, claiming Brexit should not be seen as a “sign of strength”.
He claimed it was unfair for citizens to blame every democratic failure on the Brussels project.
In an interview with the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Mr Juncker said the Brexit impasse proves his Commission cannot fix every issue.
But he also bemoaned that the powerful Brussels-based executive is often the first blamed for weaknesses shown by national government in handling their growing list of problems.