Donald Tusk wanted to mark the first anniversary of the elections of October 15, 2023, which ended eight years of authoritarian drift by the Law and Justice Government (PiS) in Poland, with the presentation of a migration strategy with measures that advance on the right to the ultraconservatives, known for their xenophobic speeches and policies. The Liberal Prime Minister has announced one of the main measures of the program called “Regain control, guarantee security” for the coming years: the temporary territorial suspension of the right to asylum.
The liberal leader whom democratic Europe looked to a year ago as the hope to stop the extreme right, assured this Saturday at the congress of his party, Civic Platform (PO), that he will present his plan to the next Council of Ministers of the Tuesday and then he will defend it before Brussels. “We want to recover 100% control over who comes to Poland,” he claimed before the militants of the center-right formation in Warsaw, five days before a European summit in which the heads of State and Government will address immigration. , among other matters.
The proposal of the leader who has recovered the relationship with Brussels after years of distancing and clashes due to the deterioration of the rule of law, crosses a red line with a proposal that represents the violation of a fundamental human right. Tusk has also insisted on his rejection of the new European migration pact, a challenge he shares with the national-populist Viktor Orbán. “We will not respect or implement any European or EU ideas if we are sure they undermine our security. “No one will force me or convince me to sign the immigration pact,” he assured.
Both Tusk and the head of Polish diplomacy, Radoslaw Sikorski, had been questioning for months the right of people to seek refuge in a safe country enshrined by the 1951 Geneva Convention. “It is being used against the essence of the right to asylum.” ”Tusk stated this Saturday. ”We know very well how they use it [Aleksandr] Lukashenko, [Vladímir] Putin, the smugglers, the human traffickers,” he continued. The classic right-wing rhetoric, which links immigration with security, in Poland is practically guaranteed success if it is linked to the Russian threat, an enemy that no one discusses in the country.
Polish governments, both this and the previous one, speak of people trying to enter the country from the eastern border more as weapons in a hybrid war than as refugees. Since 2021, the Kremlin-allied Belarusian regime has used immigration to try to destabilize the EU borders, especially in Poland. PiS used a heavy hand on the wooded border, building a fence, establishing a state of emergency to prevent anyone from approaching, including the press and NGOs, and resorting to practices prohibited by international asylum law such as pushbacks.
When he was in opposition, PO and his partners in the Government denounced these human rights violations. This Saturday, Tusk—whose coalition executive with center-right and progressive forces has continued and reinforced the same measures on the border with Belarus—has accused his predecessors of being the “most pro-immigration government in Europe” and of not having controlled “a migratory wave” that, according to him, “has flooded Poland.”
The prime minister is trying to maintain an impossible balance by projecting a humane image that distances him from PiS and, at the same time, is heavy-handed. “There is no more humane policy, understood as disaster prevention, than effectively protecting this border,” he argued. By reinforcing the dividing line – a muddy terrain with freezing temperatures in winter where dozens of people have died – and sending the message that it is “impassable”, “no one will die on this border,” he explained. At the same time he warned: “There is no way for someone to enter Poland illegally and we turn a blind eye.”
For the liberal leader, “the problem of illegal immigration is today the most important issue in Poland, in Europe and in the world.” Tusk’s reading is that citizens “have a fear of a civilizational nature”, which they blame on the xenophobic discourse of PiS, but from which they do not really move away. He states, for example, that it is normal that if people from another culture arrive in the country, Polish families feel threatened, and he intends to guarantee security with his strategy. “We will reduce illegal migration in Poland to a minimum, we will eradicate those practices that violate the security of women, men and the Polish State. “We will eliminate these practices to zero to fully regain control over who comes, why they come and how useful they can be,” the prime minister proclaimed.
Integration strategy
In the last seven years, Poland has been the EU country that has issued the most first residence permits to non-EU immigrants, as reported in the digital Notes from Poland. At the end of 2023, there were 1.13 million foreigners affiliated with Polish social security, representing almost 7% of all contributors to the system. Of these, the bulk are mainly Ukrainian refugees and Belarusian citizens, but the number of people from Asia and the Middle East has also increased in recent years.
The country lacks a migration policy that contemplates the integration of newcomers. The strategy that the Government has been working on for a few months will include these aspects, to work with “people who want to pay taxes and integrate into Polish society”, and are willing to “accept Polish norms and customs”. “We have a whole catalog of negative experiences in Western countries. They let many immigrants enter but at some point, they omitted the integration aspect,” he stated. This week, the European Commission announced that it will finance 49 integration centers for foreigners in the country.
The Government also wants to encourage the return of Poles who emigrated to other countries. “Why wouldn’t an 18-year-old Polish woman or a 20-year-old Pole living in the United States or England want to return here?” he asked. With its absolute migration control plan, he assures, the country “will objectively be the safest place in Europe.” The prime minister’s speech to his party, in which he reviewed the achievements since last autumn’s elections, comes as the country prepares to plunge into its fourth election campaign in just over a year, with its sights set on the elections to elect president in May 2025.
