During Saturday’s Civic Coalition (KO) convention, Prime Minister Donald Tusk presented the government’s migration strategy, including the temporary, territorial suspension of the right to asylum in light of the hybrid war on Poland’s borders, stating that the right to asylum is being used as a tool by regimes hostile to Europe.
“I will demand the right to recognize this decision in Europe,” announced Donald Tusk. “If someone wants to come to Poland, they must accept Polish standards and customs. (…) People who come to Poland must want to “work honestly, pay taxes, integrate with Polish society, and study at a real university,” he added.
“The temporary suspension of asylum applications was introduced in May in Finland. It is a response to the hybrid war declared against the entire EU (including primarily Poland) by the regimes in Moscow and Minsk, consisting of organizing mass transfers of people across our borders. The right to asylum is used instrumentally in this war and has nothing to do with human rights. Border control and the territorial security of Poland is and will be our priority,” Tusk announced.
“We want the exact opposite approach to migration, that is, the state must regain 100 percent control over who comes to Poland and enters it,” Tusk said, echoing sentiments voiced for years by Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán.
Tusk then claimed that the previous Law and Justice (PiS) government allowed immigration to get out of control, with illegal migrants flooding Poland, to then use the hatred and anger this created as “political fuel” for PiS.
“No government in Europe has done as much wrong in the matter of migration as the (former conservative) PiS government,” he claimed.
Not all Poles were happy about Tusk’s announced strategy. A former MEP and director of the Polish Humanitarian Action organization, Janina Ochojska, is known for her criticism of the protection of the Polish-Belarusian border against the influx of migrants. Quoting the Ocalenie Foundation, she posted on X: “The European Court of Justice has fined Hungary €200 million for ‘suspending the right to asylum,’ and has also ordered an additional €1 million fine for each day of delay. The fine can be deducted from EU funds that were to be transferred to the country.”
“Will Donald Tusk now repeat Orbán’s ideas?” Ochojska asked, adding, “I feel like I’ve moved to a completely different country. Hello, Mr. Prime Minister, it’s me, your voter. You promised me a completely different country, a Poland that is open, law-abiding, bases its policy on values, gives everyone a chance to develop and help those who need it.”
KO MEP Bartłomiej Sienkiewicz also joined in on the conversation to counter those outraged: “Critics refer to the UN convention, but they forget that there is Article 9 there on security and allows for the suspension of certain refugee rights.”
“If we have people flying to Belarus from Dubai today, then trained by eastern services and sent to the border with Poland, then this is probably a security threat,” he further stated. Calling out the rhetoric from some on the left, specifically the head of Amnesty International, Anna Błaszczak-Banasiak, who said that seeking a better life in the EU is not a crime that should be punished by death in a Polish forest., Sienkiewicz said: “This is rhetoric at its worst. A serious organization should not speak out in this way.”
Meanwhile, the head of the PiS caucus, Mariusz Błaszczak, said he has no illusions about the prime minister’s announcement. “Tusk only warms up the topic of border security when he needs to divert attention from other issues that are troublesome for him. Then, he very quickly loses interest in the matter,” the former defense minister stated.
“For 10 months we have had many discussions about the border, several proposals to strengthen its security and zero specific actions,” Błaszczak said, adding that “this is Tusk’s modus operandi known from the times of the first PO-PSL government. Nothing has changed.”
The European Commission just announced an initiative to prepare for a spike in migrants entering the country with 49 EU-funded Foreigners’ Integration Centers, under the leadership of Poland’s Ministry of Family, Labour, and Social Policy. The centers will support an expected surge in migrants with language courses, legal help, and other adaptation services.
