Poland invoked “the sovereign right of member states to determine their migration policies and to decide who to accept on their territory”.
(AFP / FRIEDRICH FLORIN)
Poland and Hungary want to keep their “sovereign right to determine their migration policy”. At a European summit on Thursday, June 29 in Brussels, both countries protested against an agreement on asylum reform passed by a qualified majority in early June and demanded a unanimous decision.
The two countries called for the summit’s final declaration to be amended to reflect this wish in particular, which was rejected by other member states. After several hours of late-night discussions, no agreement could be reached and leaders agreed to continue on Friday morning. “This is an issue that we will take up tomorrow and we hope the evening will bring some advice,” commented Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
The interior ministers of the 27 agreed on June 8th in Luxembourg on a system of compulsory solidarity between EU countries in the care of asylum seekers,
a breakthrough on a file that has been blocked for years
.
According to this agreement – which is still provisional as it has to be negotiated with Parliament –
Member States would be obliged to accommodate a certain number of applicants arriving in an EU country
are under migratory pressure or do not contribute financially, in the amount of 20,000 euros for each non-relocated refugee.
The majority applies against unanimity
Poland and Hungary voted against the proposal, while four countries abstained. The Swedish EU Presidency had decided to opt for qualified majority voting (Applicant
a positive vote from 15 out of 27 countries, representing at least 65% of the total EU population
), as foreseen in the migration treaties, and the text had been adopted.
Poland is relying on previous conclusions of European summits to demand that decisions on such a sensitive issue be taken “by consensus”, according to a text seen by AFP. She would also like to mention “the sovereign right of Member States to define their migration policies and to decide who to accept into their territory”.
“The Polish-Hungarian duo fights and resists together.
“It’s going to be a long night,” warned Balazs Orban, a close confidante of Hungarian nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, on Twitter, referring to a “big fight over the migration pact.”
The nationalist populists in power in Poland want to organize a national referendum on the issue of accepting refugees.
Poland is currently hosting more than a million Ukrainian refugees
who fled their country after the Russian invasion in February 2022, but authorities have long refused to resettle migrants who arrived in Greece or Italy.