Poland to build coalition against EU migration pact

by Aleksandra Krzysztoszek

Poland will attempt to block the migration and asylum pact that the Council of the EU adopted last week and build a coalition of opponents, conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government spokesman, Piotr Muller, told TVP Info on Sunday.

During last Thursday’s Council meeting in Luxembourg, EU Interior Ministers agreed on a negotiation position on the asylum procedure regulation and the asylum and migration management regulation. Poland and Hungary were the only member countries to vote against.

“Poland will block the solutions regarding the relocation of migrants,” said Muller, calling the position adopted by the Council “a short-term thinking, which will de facto cause migration waves to grow.”

The adopted negotiating position is based on a so-called mandatory solidarity mechanism. Countries that refuse to accept the established quotas of asylum seekers will be allowed to contribute financially instead, with the sum fixed at €20,000 per relocation.

Still, Poland neither wants to receive asylum seekers nor pay, as Polish Permanent Representative Andrzej Sados believes the option of financial contribution is actually “a punishment” for a refusal to comply with the quotas.

Poland will attempt to build a coalition in the EU Parliament against the solutions agreed by the Council.

If the pact nonetheless comes into force, Warsaw will not deliver the commitments. “We have a right to reject them and go to the expense of this decision,” the spokesman said.

Meanwhile, PiS’ junior ruling coalition partner, the anti-EU Sovereign Poland party, announced it would submit to the Polish parliament a draft resolution opposing what it said to be the forced relocation of migrants.

There will be no agreement for Polish people to pay huge sums of money for the mistakes of the migration policy by the richer EU countries, said the party’s leader, Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro, as quoted by Wirtualna Polska news outlet.

The proposed resolution would be “an opportunity to express a resolute opposition by all the (Polish) political forces against such ideas by the Eurocrats,” he added.

*first published in: Euractiv.com