WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s ruling celebration desires to ask voters in a referendum whether or not they help accepting “thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa” as a part of a European Union relocation plan, the prime minister stated Sunday, as his conservative celebration seeks to carry onto energy in an October parliamentary election.
Mateusz Morawiecki introduced the referendum query in a brand new video revealed on social media. It indicated that his celebration, Law and Justice, is searching for to make use of migration in its election marketing campaign, a tactic that helped it take energy in 2015.
Poland at the moment hosts greater than one million Ukrainian refugees, who’re primarily white and Christian, however officers have lengthy made clear that they take into account Muslims and others from completely different cultures to be a menace to the nation’s cultural identification and safety.
EU inside ministers in June endorsed a plan to share out duty for migrants getting into Europe with out authorization, the foundation of one of many bloc’s longest-running political crises.
The Polish authorities desires to carry the referendum alongside the parliamentary election, scheduled for Oct. 15. Morawiecki stated that the query would say: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa under the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”
The video asserting the query contains scenes of burning vehicles and different avenue violence in Western Europe. A Black man licks an enormous knife in obvious anticipation of committing a criminal offense. Party chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski then says: “Do you want this to happen in Poland as well? Do you want to cease being masters of your own country?”
An opposition politician, Robert Biedron, reacted by saying the migration query is pointless as a result of participation within the EU mechanism is just not obligatory and may be changed by different types of shared duty, whereas Poland itself may very well be eligible for help or for a waiver of its contribution because of the excessive variety of Ukrainian refugees.
Biedron, a European Parliament member for the Left celebration, posted on the X platform, previously referred to as Twitter, a letter from EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson. In it, she units out the phrases of the relocation mechanism and the grounds for searching for an exemption.
Leaders have introduced two different questions in latest days. One will ask voters for his or her views on privatizing state-owned enterprises and the opposite will ask in the event that they help elevating the retirement age, which Law and Justice lowered to 60 for girls and 65 for males.
The questions are set as much as depict the opposition celebration, Civic Platform, as a menace to the pursuits of Poles. The pro-business and pro-EU celebration, which ruled from 2007 to 2015, raised the retirement age throughout its time in energy, favored some privatization and signaled a willingness to simply accept a couple of thousand refugees earlier than it misplaced energy.
The video takes intention instantly at Civic Platform chief Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council. “Tusk is the greatest threat to our security, he is the greatest threat to Poland’s security,” Morawiecki says. “Let’s not let Tusk – as an envoy of the Brussels elites – demolish security in Poland.”
Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years in the past after nicely over one million folks entered the bloc – most of them fleeing battle in Syria – and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, within the course of sparking one of many EU’s largest political crises.
The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which nations ought to take duty for folks arriving with out authorization, and whether or not different members needs to be obliged to assist them cope.
Initially Poland was neither an entry nation nor a vacation spot nation for migrants and refugees. It grew to become a front-line state two years in the past when migrants started crossing from Belarus, one thing European authorities view as an effort by the Russian ally to generate turmoil in Poland and different European nations.
Poland responded by constructing a big wall on its border. It has lately elevated its navy presence on the border fearing an uptick in migration and different doable instability.
As nicely as disagreements over migration, Law and Justice has lengthy been in battle with the EU over a notion by the bloc that the Warsaw authorities has been eroding democratic norms.
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