Warsaw:
Poland's top diplomat, Radoslaw Sikorski, who burnished his credentials in the Ukraine crisis, is now in the spotlight over leaks in which he appears to rubbish Polish-US ties and Britain's prime minister.
The Oxford-educated former war correspondent, who is married to the Washington Post's Anne Applebaum, has always been outspoken and difficult partner for the United States, despite also being determinedly pro-American.
Poland recently floated the 51-year-old to succeed Catherine Ashton, whose term as European Union foreign policy chief ends this year.
But remarks leaked Monday by Poland's Wprost weekly attributed to Sikorski in a private conversation with former finance minister Jacek Rostowski could undermine his ambitions.
The pro-European Sikorski, who is known for his hawkishness on Russia, allegedly said British Prime Minister David Cameron's concessions to eurosceptics showed his "incompetence in EU affairs".
"He should have said 'fuck off' and tried to convince people and isolate the others (eurosceptics). But instead, he provided them with the means to humiliate him," he is heard telling Rostowski in the recording, purportedly made in a Warsaw restaurant earlier this year.
"It's either a very poorly thought out move or, not for the first time, his incompetence in EU affairs."
He also characterised Warsaw's alliance with the US as "worthless... even harmful because it gives Poland a false sense of security" according to the recordings, which were apparently made by waiters.
"Complete bullshit! We'll enter into conflict with Germany, with Russia, and we'll think everything is fine because we gave the Americans a blow job. Suckers. Complete suckers."
Sikorski has blasted the recordings as an "attack on the government by an organised criminal group".
Too strong a personalityHis reputation for blunt talk has already earned him a spot on the 2012 Top Global Thinkers list compiled by Foreign Policy magazine for "telling the truth, even when it's not diplomatic".
But it is precisely this quality that has divided opinion over his bid to succeed Ashton.
"Sikorski is probably too strong a personality to head up Europe's diplomacy, an area in which member states want to retain strong influence," a diplomat in Brussels told AFP Tuesday on condition of anonymity.
Sikorski was defence minister in 2005-7 before taking over as chief diplomat, a job he has held in two successive centre-right administrations led by Tusk.
He played a high-profile role in the bloc's attempt to calm the Ukraine crisis in February.
He has also been a key advocate of the EU's Eastern Partnership programme, which is designed to draw ex-Soviet states closer to the West to the dismay of their former master Russia.
Ukraine is the largest member of the group, which also includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia and Moldova.
A correspondent for the British press in Angola and Afghanistan in 1986-89, Sikorski spent two decades in Britain before returning to Poland after communism's demise.
Destabilising PolandThe high-profile eavesdropping scandal has sparked a political crisis in Poland and called into question the future of its centre-right government.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk has dubbed the leaks an attempted "coup d'etat" aimed at "destabilising" Poland.
Two people have been charged over them so far, including the manager of the restaurant in which Sikorski dined and a waiter at another upmarket eatery frequented by the capital's business elite.
Poland's leading Gazeta Wyborcza daily has suggested extortion could be the real motive behind the leaks, claiming three waiters at Warsaw's Sowa & Przyjaciele restaurant have been implicated.
The first recording purportedly features central bank chief Marek Belka telling Interior Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz he would support the government's economic policy if Rostowski -- then finance minister -- left its ranks.
The conversation allegedly took place at Sowa & Przyjaciele in July 2013. Months later, Rostowski was turfed out of his job.
Days after Wprost posted the embarrassing audio, government agents raided its offices and tried to wrestle a laptop out of the editor-in-chief's arms in a scene that has raised alarm at home and abroad over press freedom.
Polish media reports indicate there are several hundred hours of recordings of politicians and top businessmen that could still surface.