The Polish prime minister has mocked François Hollande’s low poll ratings on the second day of a bitter row over the re-election of Donald Tusk as European council president, which Poland tried to block.

Speaking at an ill-tempered EU summit in Brussels, Beata Szydło took aim at Hollande after the French president appeared to suggest that Poland – as one of the biggest recipients of EU structural funds – should toe the line on Tusk’s re-election.

Szydło said she would not accept threats from a leader with Hollande’s low polling numbers: “Am I supposed to take seriously the blackmail of a president who has a 4% approval rating and who soon won’t be president?”

Poland is due to receive over €100bn (£88bn) in EU funding from the current budget period from 2014 to 2020. The Polish PM added: “Some leaders in Europe believe that everything and anything can be bought with money and I said that that is not our opinion last night.”

Szydło, whose rightwing Eurosceptic Law and Justice party has nursed a long and bitter enmity with Tusk, nominated a rival candidate for European council president but did not receive any support from the rest of the EU. In response to Tusk’s re-election, Poland blocked the summit’s final statement.

Other EU leaders said they hoped Poland would put the row behind it. The Austrian chancellor, Christian Kern, said: “I see no sense, either for the Poles or the rest, in going to sulk in a corner.” He said Europe must concentrate on finding a consensus on matters of substance such as jobs, economic growth, migration and security.

Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, made clear that frustration with Poland lingered, saying “behaviour like yesterday’s is not acceptable”.

“I don’t think yesterday will be the long-term state of the EU. I am convinced that Poland will become sensible again in the coming days and weeks.”

However, Szydło, following a session that was meant to focus on preparations for a grand meeting in Italy on 25 March to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the EU’s founding Treaty of Rome, also said her country would not accept proposals supported by Germany for formalising a multi-speed Europe.

She told reporters that Warsaw would “never agree to a Europe of different speeds because that would lead to the EU’s disintegration”.