There was an awkward silence on Wednesday when Poland’s interior minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, told Brussels that implementing the bloc’s migration pact “was not possible.”
Siemoniak was speaking alongside a commissioner who did not hit back at his claim, despite previous threats of legal action being launched against non-compliant states. He even praised Poland for being “such an important partner.”
The Warsaw official cited arguments made last month by Prime Minister Donald Tusk in talks with Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, that the mass arrival of Ukrainians since—and, indeed, even before—Russia’s invasion means Poland is already under “huge” migratory pressure.
If somebody says that Poland is expected to shoulder an additional burden, irrespective of who says that, my response is Poland will not accept an additional burden. Full stop.
It is, of course, difficult to imagine Brussels treading so tentatively around such a refusal if it had come from a sovereigntist leader it was less friendly with than Tusk.
Polish journalist Michał Gostkiewicz suggested that the Commission might simply have now “accepted this Polish decision as a fact already,” having heard it stated on numerous occasions.
No such decision has been clearly stated in any way. As we have previously pointed out, Tusk says Poland “will not accept a single migrant” under the pact’s so-called ‘mandatory solidarity mechanism,’ but has said nothing about this relocation scheme’s alternative requirement, for states to pay €20,000 for each migrant it turns down.
Former deputy justice minister Sebastian Kaleta warned last January that “Tusk’s government plans to pay the amounts set by the European Commission if the Migration Pact comes into force.” It is supposed to do so next year, so Poles—nor, indeed, commissioners—should not have to wait long to find out.
