Prime Minister Donald Tusk made international headlines for claiming that Poland would suspend the right to asylum in a hardline speech on immigration this week. Now, in a speech yesterday in the Polish parliament, the Sejm, he assured Poles that “no one was talking about suspending the right to asylum.”
The problem is that such a claim was indeed uttered just a few days earlier and may be the latest evidence that Tusk’s claims about getting tough on migration was a political stunt.
“No one is talking here about suspending the right to asylum. That is not true,” said Tusk, adding: “We are talking about not accepting asylum applications (submitted) by people who illegally cross the border, organized by (Belarusian leader) Lukashenko.”
Tusk said something completely different a few days earlier during the Civic Platform convention, stating: “One of the elements of the migration strategy will be the temporary territorial suspension of the right to asylum, and I will demand its recognition in Europe.”
Tusk has already been called out by several politicians, professors and journalists for his so-called sharp turn against migration. One key factor is the upcoming Polish presidential election, with Tusk attempting to backtrack on his previous open borders policies in order to ensure a victory during the key election, which would cement his power in Poland.
Furthermore, at the same time Tusk is attempting to present a tough line on migration, his government is very supportive of the EU’s migration pact, which is essentially a migrant quota system that will force migrants on countries like Poland and Hungary.
Law and Justice (PiS) MPs Paweł Jabłoński, Marcin Przydacz and Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk said that at a time when Donald Tusk is waging a fierce war on migrants and announcing the suspension of the right to asylum, members of the Sejm’s European Union Committee positively assessed the European Commission’s guidelines for the implementation of the migration pact.
“The government majority has given a positive opinion on the European Commission’s guidelines on the implementation of the migration pact. Previously, they had the opportunity to block the pact and submit an appeal to the European Court of Justice, but they did not do so. They did not use the tools negotiated by Mateusz Morawiecki but are instead working on implementing very dangerous regulations for Poland, which could lead to the relocation of thousands of illegal migrants to our country,” wrote Paweł Jabłoński on social media.
