At a meeting of ambassadors from the bloc's 27 member states in Brussels, Poland's Andrzej Sadoś said that the proposal needed further work, public broadcaster Polish Radio's polskieradio24.pl news website reported.
Under the EU's relocation plan, Brussels wants member countries to pay EUR 22,000 for every migrant they refuse to admit, according to polskieradio24.pl.
'Balance between responsibility and solidarity'
Sadoś, who has been Poland's ambassador to the EU since 2018, criticized the proposal during Wednesday's meeting, saying it failed to ensure a "balance between responsibility and solidarity" and "overlooked the efforts and costs incurred by individual member states in protecting the EU's external borders," the website said.
Sadoś's remarks came after the Polish minister for European affairs, Szymon Szynkowski vel Sęk, said last month that Poland would oppose any EU proposals for “mandatory relocation” of migrants to member states as such a mechanism would be “harmful and inefficient."
Szynkowski vel Sęk made the statement on social media after the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, in late May unveiled a plan by the bloc’s executive Commission to introduce mandatory relocation of migrants, Polish state news agency PAP reported at the time.
The plan outlined to EU ambassadors is a return to proposals made by Brussels in response to a migration crisis in 2015, Polish officials have said.
In 2015, several member states including Poland came out against mandatory relocation, prompting the European Commission to launch law-infringement procedures against these countries, the PAP news agency reported.
EU relocation mechanisms 'harmful and inefficient': Polish gov't minister
On May 24, the EU's Johansson proposed a mechanism for "mandatory relocation of migrants” under which member states that refuse to take part in the project would be asked to pay EUR 22,000 for each migrant they refuse to admit, according to a Polish diplomat.
Szynkowski vel Sęk commented on Twitter at the time: “Poland has consistently opposed mandatory mechanisms for the relocation of migrants. We were right. These proposals have turned out to be harmful and inefficient.”
He added: ”We'll consistently and firmly oppose attempts to revive these proposals.”
'A glaring disparity'
During a meeting with Johansson last month, Poland's Sadoś said that a million refugees from war-torn Ukraine had been granted international protection in Poland and that the EU had allocated EUR 200 million for measures to support them, according to PAP.
The Polish envoy reportedly argued that this meant EUR 200 for every refugee from Ukraine, while at the same time Brussels planned to charge member countries EUR 22,000 for every “irregular migrant” they refused to admit under the “mandatory relocation scheme."
“It’s a glaring disparity,” Sadoś told Johansson, according to Polish Radio’s IAR news agency.
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Source: polskieradio24.pl, IAR
