Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has said that he will not accept EU migration rules if they compromise the security of his country, vowing to temporarily suspend the right to claim asylum.
Rejecting EU quotas on migrants, Tusk is expected to deliver Poland’s new migration policy on the 15th of October at a government meeting.
Speaking of the new rules he said, “One of the elements of the migration strategy will be the temporary territorial suspension of the right to asylum,”
“I will demand this, I will demand recognition in Europe for this decision,” he said.
Accusing Russia and Belarus of sending asylum seekers to the west in order to destabilise the region, he said. “We know very well how it is used by Lukashenko, Putin… by people smugglers, people traffickers, how this right to asylum is used exactly against the essence of the right to asylum,” he said. “Poland must take back 100% control over who comes to Poland,” he added.
Speaking at his party’s Civic Coalition convention in Warsaw last Saturday, Tusk said he intends to be “absolutely tough and ruthless,” on illegal migration.
He stressed that his government, “will not respect or implement any European, or EU ideas if we are sure that they harm our security.”
I am talking here about the migration pact,” he said.
“After adopting this migration strategy, we will reduce illegal migration in Poland to a minimum. We will eradicate those practices that de facto bypassed Polish interests, that violated the security of Poles and the Polish state,” he said.
Tusk’s promises of tough border security have provoked criticism from human rights groups with Malgorzata Szuleka of the Warsaw-based Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights saying his actions were “a new low,”.
Szuleka said, “There is a humanitarian crisis on the border, but it is also an open migration route. We need to find a place for a rational discussion that is not so populistically driven,”
Elsewhere Hungary has requested an opt-out of the EU Migration Pact with Minister of European Affairs, Janos Boka sending a letter to Commissioner Ylva Johansson expressing the country’s wish to follow the recent actions of the Dutch.
The letter stated that the new Dutch Government, “in view of its constitutional obligations”, called for “an opt-out from the European asylum and migration acquis in case of a Treaty amendment in order to ensure that the Netherlands can achieve the aim of drastically reducing the volume of migration.”
Boka said that the Hungarian government “is committed to taking firm steps to protect its borders and c illegal migration that poses a threat to national security.”
He said that his country, “believes that re-establishing a stronger national control over migration is now the only option to reach these objectives and effectively stem illegal migration” and that Hungary was therefore requesting the opt-out “from the European Union’s asylum and migration acquis should a Treaty amendment take place in the future and will initiate the appropriate procedures to this effect.”
Boka noted that Hungary “remains committed” to the Schengen Area which he said has” unfortunately become fragmented due to prolonged and widespread internal border controls introduced because of illegal migration and security threats.”