Poland to Suspend Asylum Rights to Reduce Illegal Immigration — Prime Minister
/ Go to the mediabankA Polish soldier on duty near a camp of illegal migrants on the Belarusian-Polish border / Go to the mediabank
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Saturday that he planned to suspend asylum rights under a new national migration strategy to tackle rights abuses and illegal immigration. He added that he would «seek recognition of this decision in Europe». «I will loudly announce today that one of the elements of the migration strategy will be the temporary territorial suspension of the right to asylum. I will seek recognition of this decision in Europe,» Tusk said at a congress of his center-right Civic Platform party in Warsaw. The Polish prime minister said that he had prepared a new migration strategy and would soon present it to the cabinet. He argued that the right to asylum in Europe was often being abused.
"After adopting this strategy, we will reduce illegal migration to a minimum. We will get rid of practices that de facto do not correspond to Polish interests, which violate the security of Poles and the Polish state. We will end such practices to fully restore control over who comes here, why, and how useful they can be," Tusk said.
WorldPoland Will Not Accept Migrants Within EU Framework — Prime Minister14 May, 12:31 GMTPoland will only accept those migrants who want to be integrated into Polish society, the prime minister added. He cited Germany as an example of a country that had failed to make migrant workers an integral part of its social fabric. «If someone wants to come to live in Poland forever or for a long time, to study and live here, they must respect our standards and traditions, and be willing to integrate,» he said. Speaking about the new EU Asylum and Migration Pact, which is set to enter into force in 2026, Tusk vowed that Poland would never agree to it.
"I will be adamant. We will not implement any European ideas if we know for sure that they will put our security at risk," the prime minister said.
The Council of the EU adopted the pact in May in a bid to tackle illegal migration, human trafficking and toughen punishments for related crimes. The reform foresees fair distribution of migrants between the EU countries, which is meant to decrease the load on EU member states on the external border. In late September, Polish Defense Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said that the migration situation this year has been more difficult than in 2023. Around 2,500 illegal attempts at border crossing have been detected by Polish border guards since the start of September. In mid-2021, thousands of migrants gathered at the Polish-Belarusian border in the hope of entering the European Union. Since then, hundreds of migrants have been regularly making attempts to cross into Poland. Polish authorities tightened border security and accused Belarus of fueling the crisis, which Minsk denies.