Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk and his Czech counterpart Petr Fiala made the announcement during intergovernmental consultations held in Prague on Wednesday.
Tusk said: “Together we must convince other partners in the EU, and we will succeed, that the EU’s task is to protect [its] external border and reduce illegal migration to the minimum, and not to set up internal borders and search for mechanisms that only move groups of illegal migrants back and forth within Europe.”
He added that he and Fiala would cooperate closely, saying: “Poland can count on the Czech Republic, and the Czech Republic can count on Poland.”
He continued that the two would insist on “the necessity to conduct a very serious political debate on migration during the next meeting of the European Council in Brussels.”
“The point is that the leaders of European states seriously think through all the pros and cons of earlier solutions so that Europe and its member states are effectively protected from a wave of illegal migration, increasingly more often organized by
external actors,” Tusk said.
Poland’s new migration policy
Tusk also said that on Saturday, he will unveil Poland’s new, long-term and “modern” migration strategy, adding that it will also be “a proposition for all of the European Union.”
He stressed that Poland’s situation is special, as aside from the challenges faced by the bloc as a whole due to “wars, famine, and overpopulation that surround Europe,” Poland is also facing the pressure brought about by the engineered migration crisis on the Polish-Belarusian border.
Because of that “the position we will present to the EU will be particularly firm,” he said.
He added that he was convinced that when the matter is discussed on the EU forum, “it will not be just the two of us.”
He said: “I am convinced that it [migration policy change] is gaining more support across the whole of EU.”
The new migration policy for the years 2025-2030 is currently underway in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration and includes comprehensive changes to legislation, aimed at eliminating loopholes and creating a coherent and well-coordinated system of handling migration and foreigners residing and working in Poland.
