Mateusz Morawiecki made the declaration at a meeting with voters in the eastern town of Łochów on Sunday, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
The prime minister said that the European Union’s executive Commission “is seeking to force Poland and other member states to admit migrants.”
‘Poland won’t allow mandatory relocation of migrants’: PM
Morawiecki stated: “As long as our Law and Justice (PiS) party is in power… we won’t allow illegal migrants to come to Poland without our will, without our permission, without our knowledge.”
He added: “For us, the most important thing is the security of Polish families, the security of Polish women and the security of Polish children.”
The prime minister cited as a warning the example of “countries that have admitted hundreds of thousands of migrants,” such as France, Italy and Sweden.
He said the influx of migrants had turned “whole districts” of cities such as Paris, Marseille, Rome and Stockholm into “no-go areas” full of “burning tyres and burning cars,” where long-standing residents fear to enter.
Morawiecki told the meeting in Łochów: “That’s how life looks in many European cities. And so we won’t allow such policies.”
The prime minister stressed that Poland “showed real solidarity with real migrants,” by welcoming refugees from war-torn Ukraine.
He said: “For the assistance we have provided the EU has paid… next to nothing, some EUR 50-60 [per refugee]. Meanwhile, they are demanding that we pay more than EUR 20,000 for every migrant that we refuse to admit.”
‘The government is guarding Poland’s security and cultural cohesion’
Morawiecki vowed: “The Law and Justice government is guarding the security and cultural cohesion of our nation and our country.”
He said Poland’s ruling conservatives “won’t accept” mandatory relocation of migrants “dictated” by the European Commission.
The prime minister noted that after Law and Justice assumed power in 2015, Poland had teamed up with Hungary and the Czech Republic to block a Germany-led plan to “throw the EU door wide open” to migrants, amid the border crisis at the time.
Morawiecki stated that the ruling party’s position on the issue of migration “protects Polish families, our cultural policy and an independent Polish migration policy, which in essence means sovereignty.”
EU countries agree new migration deal
The EU’s interior ministers on Thursday reached an agreement on a plan to overhaul the bloc’s asylum and migration procedures, the PAP news agency reported.
Poland and Hungary voted against the new asylum and migration package, according to news outlets.
The plan will form “the basis of negotiations” by the Swedish presidency of the Council of the EU with the European Parliament, officials said.
Under the proposed migration package, EU countries would be bound by “mandatory solidarity” in migration policy, while having flexibility “as regards the choice of the individual contributions,” including relocation and financial contributions, the PAP news agency reported.
The EU would commit to at least 30,000 relocations per year “from member states where most persons enter the EU to member states less exposed to such arrivals,” officials said.
Meanwhile, financial contributions from member states would be fixed at EUR 20,000 per one relocation at a minimum, the PAP news agency reported.
“These figures can be increased where necessary and situations where no need for solidarity is foreseen in a given year will also be taken into account,” the European Commission said.
The plan effectively means that each EU country would have “a choice between admitting relocated migrants and making a financial contribution for every migrant it refuses to admit,” a high-ranking EU diplomat who took part in the negotiations told PAP.
Earlier on Sunday, Polish government spokesman Piotr Müller said that Poland would seek to block the plan in the Council of the EU as well as in the European Parliament.
Müller also told public broadcaster TVP Info: “If these obligations become EU law, Poland won’t comply with them. We are entitled to refuse and bear the costs if necessary.”
Monday is day 474 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
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Source: PAP, politico.eu, consilium.europa.eu