PM defends Poland’s stance on migration, court reforms

Speaking to US broadcaster CNN during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, an annual gathering of global political and business leaders, Morawiecki said: “We already contribute a lot to easing tensions at the eastern flank of the European Union."

He added: “Some people seem to forget that there is a war in Ukraine and there is a huge population coming from the Donbass area to Poland and these are homeless people. These are people whom we treat as if they were refugees.”

Migrant quotas

The European Commission in December took Poland to the top EU court for refusing to accept migrant quotas.

In September 2015, EU leaders agreed that each country in the bloc would accept a number of migrants over two years to alleviate the pressure on Greece and Italy, which have seen waves of migrants arriving from the Middle East and Africa.

EU leaders agreed to relocate about 160,000 of a total of more than 2 million migrants who arrived in Europe since 2015.

Poland’s previous government led by the Civic Platform party agreed to take in over 6,000 people.

But after coming to power in October 2015, Poland's conservative Law and Justice (PiS) government staunchly opposed the arrangement.

Morawiecki told CNN: “It’s about the methodology of how to best help those people. We are helping them in situ. We have created lots of initiatives and institutions to help those very poor people in Syria, in Libya. We are increasing our efforts to be there, to cope with the problems in the place where they are.”

Court reforms

Morawiecki was also asked by CNN about concerns in the EU that the Polish government has increased control over the judiciary through court reforms.

Morawiecki replied: “There is as little truth in this suggestion as there is ice on the Sahara desert... We are going to make our [judicial] system more independent, more objective, more transparent, and much more efficient and effective.”

(pk/gs)

Source: CNN/PAP