Poland is expected to reject any EU-wide proposal for mandatory relocation of migrants across member states.
The European Commission is returning to the idea as the latest migrant crisis ensues on its southern external border. According to a Polish diplomatic source quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP), if EU countries do not agree to the plans, the EU executive is proposing a financial equivalent payment of €22,000 per migrant.
A source told PAP that Andrzej Sadoś, Poland’s top diplomat in Brussels, stated that Poland will not agree to such a solution. This proposal was presented on Wednesday by EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson to the ambassadors of member states.
It reopens the discussion that began during the migrant crisis of 2015. At that time, some countries did not agree to it, and as a result, the European Commission initiated procedures for violating EU law against those countries, including Poland.
“Commissioner Johansson proposed the de facto introduction of a mechanism for the compulsory relocation of migrants on Wednesday,” said the Polish diplomatic source.
Poland and other member states opposed the proposal.
The commissioner proposed that if any of the EU countries did not want to participate in the relocation of migrants, they would have to pay €22,000 for each migrant not accepted.
“It would be a financial equivalent, but de facto it would be a penalty,” added the PAP source.
According to the agency’s information, during the discussions with Johansson, Sadoś highlighted that in Poland, 1 million refugees from Ukraine are under international protection, and the EU has allocated €200 million to assist them. He emphasized that the EU allocated €200 per Ukrainian refugee, and at the same time, it plans to burden countries that do not want to accept irregular migrants under the mechanism of compulsory relocation with a sum of €22,000. This, as he noted, is a huge difference.
Furthermore, according to PAP, the European Commission is proposing the relocation of 30,000 migrants to other EU countries, with the possibility of increasing it to 120,000 people.
