Poland fears that up to 40,000 migrants may be returned to its territory from Germany, according to sources in the Polish foreign ministry who spoke with news outlet Interia.
Under EU rules known as the Dublin procedures, Poland would be required to take all of these migrants, as they first appeared in Poland and made their way to Germany. While Poland may ultimately decide against any asylum application, in the meantime, the migrant will have been provided with decent living conditions. Furthermore, the cost of any deportation would then fall on Poland.
As Interia learned, the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs fears a situation in which Germany will fully exploit the procedures for readmitting migrants. As a result, Berlin will be able to send up to 40 thousand migrants to the Vistula. If this happens, Poland will have to accept them.
Germany may also return illegal migrants who had their applications rejected but were originally in Poland. This falls under a bilateral, Polish-German agreement that already exists.
However, tens of thousands of these migrants have been living in Germany for some time, so why is Poland fearing this move now? It has to do with growing political pressure in Germany, which has seen the country take extraordinary steps of closing its borders and introducing migration control. Police are consistently finding people who were first in Poland but have now tried to enter Germany. In Poland, they were caught and filed asylum applications, signed their documents, and then left for Germany.
The ruling federal government has hit historic lows in the polling, and the anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) has scored a string of successes.
In addition to the Polish foreign ministry noting that Poland may have to take back up to 40,000 of these migrants, there are also worries that this may be a growing source of conflict between Berlin and Warsaw in the future, which may spill over into other areas of Polish-German relations.
As Remix News previously reported, Poland is already accepting large numbers of such migrants. Poland accepted 15,545 migrants from Germany since Jan. 1 of this year, with returns soaring in the last three months.
Under Donald Tusk’s left-liberal government, Poland has taken in more and more migrants from Germany.
Other countries returning migrants to Poland are Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, and even Iceland.
These migrants originally came through Polish territory and moved on to other European countries. Many other nations refuse to take their migrants back under “Dublin rules.” Italy, Spain, and Greece are the countries most likely to reject migrants’ returns.
