The new course of the Polish rulers in migration policy surprised everyone - both opponents and supporters. But Prime Minister Tusk knows that this is the only way he can hope for success in next year's presidential elections.
Polish conservatives around Jarosław Kaczyński have been using the migrant topic for election purposes for years - they claim that refugees spread infections, they were all terrorists and rapists, etc. It was this topic that helped "Law and Justice" (PiS) for its electoral triumph in 2015 - when the conservatives won both the parliamentary and presidential elections in Poland.
The opposition has always criticized PiS's migration policy, especially regarding the illegal pushbacks of migrants along the border with Belarus. However, Donald Tusk distanced himself from Angela Merkel's liberal approach years ago.
Restrictive migration policy and from Tusk?
Now Tusk has surprised both his opponents and his supporters. A year after his coalition came to power in Poland, the government announced its new migration strategy. The state must control 100 percent who enters and leaves Poland, Tusk told delegates at his coalition's congress. “To regain control, to ensure safety” - is the motto of this concept.
According to Tusk, the right to asylum should even be “temporarily suspended”. He gives the example of Finland, to which Russia and Belarus deliberately directed the flow of migrants. Tusk said he wanted to encourage the whole of Europe to turn to such a policy and criticized the EU's migration pact: “We will neither respect nor implement European ideas if we are sure they will harm our security”, he is categorical. he.
Former deputy human rights commissioner Hanna Mahinska criticized Tusk's position for rejecting European law and ignoring Poland's international obligations. Some of Tusk's smaller coalition partners will also not support the proposal, reports the Polish media “Onet”.
Battle for the presidency
Tusk wants to take away from the tailwind of “Law and justice” with its restrictive policies. Kaczynski's party wants to collect half a million signatures in the next few months to hold a referendum on EU migration policy. This will be an important part of the party's election campaign before the presidential elections next summer.
Now Tusk has changed the game, attacking Kaczynski in an area where he strongly relied on his electorate. The largest wave of migrants entered Poland during the PiS rule, and now Tusk presents himself as a politician who will reduce illegal migration to a “minimum”. The Prime Minister of Poland also hinted that the PiS policy on migrants was contradictory - while they campaigned against refugees to collect votes, they gave out work visas to a huge number of people from other continents, including for bribes.
Promised reforms are slipping
“Tusk knows that the outcome of the presidential elections will not be decided by the liberal and left-wing voters, but by the emotions of the Poles”, commented Michal Shuljinski, editor-in-chief of the newspaper “Rechpospolita”. In his words, these emotional decisions are far from those liberal intellectuals who are the basis of Tusk's party. The prime minister is ready to make sacrifices to secure a president from his political camp. Still, the president has a huge role to play.
Current President Andrzej Duda, who is an ally of PiS, has blocked many of the new government's reforms with his veto power. The restoration of the rule of law, the trials of corrupt elites and the re-establishment of diplomatic work - all this is going very slowly. Even Tusk's most loyal supporters are now impatient. And the mood can change quickly.
Kaczynski wants to strengthen the loyalty of the patriotic camp
The leader of the conservatives, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, is also acutely aware of the importance of the presidential elections. On Saturday, "Law and Justice" merged with its former coalition partner - the far-right party "Sovereign Poland", despite opposition from some of the PiS ranks. The small party of former justice minister Zbigniew Zhobro is considered Eurosceptic and radical. “The merger of the two parties is a signal to society that the patriotic camp is united”, Kaczynski claims. “We have to try extremely hard and make the same efforts as in 2015 in order to be able to win,", he points out.
Kaczynski accuses his opponent Tusk of alleged “dark” ties with Germany. He claimed that the current prime minister had won the election only thanks to German support, had refused reparations from Germany and was now carrying out the German agenda.
The race for the presidential palace looks set to remain tense until the last minute. The latest polls show that the two main rivals have almost equal chances of success.