Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło has drawn a clear link between the European Union’s permissive migration policy and terror events such as the Westminster attacks.
“I hear in Europe very often: do not connect the migration policy with terrorism, but it is impossible not to connect them,” the Polish premier told the TVN24 broadcasting network.
Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party (PiS) is currently locked in a struggle with the EU’s unelected executive, the European Commission, over its refusal to accept 6,200 migrants under a bloc-wide mandatory quota system, which was imposed despite the resistance of much of Central Europe.
The Commissioner for Migration, Dimitris Avramopoulos, said it was “important for governments to understand that they should be part of [the quota system]” on a visit to Warsaw on 21 March.
“If some of them do not comply,” he warned, “the Commission has the power [and] the tools to convince these countries.”
The bloc wishes to fine member-states €250,000 for every migrant they refuse to receive – a sanction which would cost Poland billions, but be difficult to impose.
Swedish MEP Cecilia Wikström has proposed simply withholding funds from ‘troublesome’ countries – a punishment which would be easier to implement.
Szydło struck a defiant posture in her comments to TVN24, however.
“The Commissioner should concentrate on what to do to avoid such acts as yesterday in London … Poland will not succumb to blackmail such as that expressed by the Commissioner,” she asserted.
“The Commissioner is coming to Warsaw and trying to tell us: you have to do what the EU decided, you have to take these migrants … Two days later another terrorist attack in London occurs.”
Poland has taken a similarly no-nonsense stance after other European terror events, with interior minister Mariusz Błaszczak declaring in no uncertain terms that “well-organised marches” and “painted flowers on the sidewalks” are no solution to Europe’s terror crisis after the Bastille Day truck attack in Nice, France.
“We must reject political correctness and call things by their true names,” he said. “Rather than shedding tears like [European Union High Representative Federica] Mogherini [and] organising marches that solve nothing, authorities should ensure the safety of citizens.”