“Survival of Western civilisation” depends on stopping uncontrolled migration, says Polish PM Tusk

Feb 12, 2024 | Politics, Society

The “brutal truth” is that the “survival of Western civilisation” depends upon preventing “uncontrolled migration”, Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, has declared.

Speaking at an event in the town of Morąg to launch his centrist Civic Coalition’s (KO) campaign for April’s local elections, Tusk was asked about the situation on the border with Belarus, where since 2021 tens of thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have tried to cross into Poland.

“The first and most important task of the Polish state when it comes to the situation at the border is to protect the border, including from illegal migration,” said Tusk, quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

The prime minister said that his government “will do what we have to in order not to violate [legal] standards and to prevent situations that violate the core of humanitarianism…It cannot be that people are dying on the Polish side of the border”.

Human rights groups estimate that dozens of people have died on the Polish side of the border since the crisis began.

Tusk noted that the practice of so-called pushbacks introduced by the former Law and Justice (PiS) government – which involve sending migrants back over the border – “are illegal from the perspective of international law”.

He said that he would seek to create a situation at the border in which “pushbacks are not needed at all”. However, he also “will not make any decision that will recklessly result in our border becoming less tight than it is now”.

Figures released by the interior ministry last week confirmed that pushbacks have continued since Tusk’s government took power in December. However, the ministry said that it is working on new procedures to “allow assessment of the individual situation of each migrant who finds themself in Poland”.

Speaking yesterday, Tusk said his government needed first to “fill the gaps and holes” left behind by PiS, including alleged corruption in the visa system and “the very dysfunctional fence” built on the Belarus border.

“But please believe me – and I say this also looking at what is happening in the US today – this is a question of the survival of our Western civilisation,” said Tusk. “We [must] wake up and understand that we have to protect our territory, our borders, that if we are open to all forms of migration without any control, our world will collapse.”

Ahead of last year’s parliamentary elections, the PiS government sought to portray Tusk, a former president of the European Council, as soft on migration. In particular, they suggested that he would give in to the EU’s demands to introduce a system for relocating asylum seekers within Europe.

However, during the campaign, Tusk not only presented a tough line on migration, but he also pointed to the fact that PiS had overseen record levels of immigration to Poland.

After his government took office, Tusk declared that Poland “will not accept a single migrant” under the EU’s proposed relocation system. Last week, Poalnd’s ambassador to the EU expressed opposition to the plans, which were nevertheless approved by a majority of member states.


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Main image credit: KPRM (under CC BY 3.0 PL)

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