“Prime Minister Tusk is currently trying to take credit for the success of President Karol Nawrocki. And if this indeed turns out to be the case, we will owe it to the determined stance of the President, expressed in his letter to the European Commission, in which he proposed that the EC voluntarily, so to speak, back down from these actions,” said Jacek Saryusz-Wolski in an interview with Niezależna.pl, commenting on Donald Tusk’s reaction to unconfirmed reports that the European Commission might withdraw the mandatory migrant relocation mechanism for Poland.
Tusk Announces a Success
On Saturday, the RMF24 portal published a speculative piece based on anonymous sources, in which the station’s Brussels correspondent, Katarzyna Szymańska-Borginon, claimed that Poland would be excluded from the EU migration pact due to “the enormous number of refugees received from Ukraine.” According to her, Poland would not participate in the so-called mechanism of mandatory solidarity.
The unofficial information, unsupported by any document, statement, or decision, was quickly seized upon by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, who attributed the alleged success to himself. “I said there would be no migrant relocation in Poland, and there won’t be! Done,” Tusk wrote on social media.
President Nawrocki’s Letter
Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, a long-time Minister for European Affairs, former Member and Vice-President of the European Parliament, and now an adviser to the President of Poland, emphasized in his interview with Niezależna.pl that Szymańska-Borginon’s leak “still needs confirmation, and the key date is October 15, when the European Commission will make its first decisions on this matter.”
“It is very likely that this will happen,” he said, “but that does not mean that Poland will be excluded from the migration pact permanently; it may only be excluded in the first stage.”
He added that if the information is confirmed, “the cause of this situation should be seen in the letter from the President of Poland to President von der Leyen, which was intended to anticipate the decisions to be made on Wednesday.”
“In that letter – as everyone knows – the President stated that Poland would not agree to accept migrants, and he warned Ms. von der Leyen to take into account both his position and the broad public support for it in Poland. He did this so that the issue would not have to be resolved through confrontation,”
he recalled.
They Used to Say ‘No’
According to Saryusz-Wolski, if such a decision is indeed made, “it will be a clear sign that President Karol Nawrocki’s letter, which anticipated the European Commission’s decision, caused it to back down from imposing relocated migrants on Poland in the first phase.”
He pointed out that “until recently – and essentially still – the European Commission, through its spokespersons, would always respond to any statements from Poland suggesting it should be exempted from relocation with a firm ‘no.’ The EC consistently said: Poland will not be exempted; it will be treated like all other countries.”
“At this moment, Prime Minister Tusk is trying to take credit for the success of President Karol Nawrocki. And if this indeed proves true, we will owe it to the President’s determined position, expressed in his letter, in which he proposed that the European Commission voluntarily, so to speak, in good faith, withdraw from these actions. Perhaps this will happen, and hopefully so, but if this hypothesis is confirmed, the EC must have realized that rejecting such a goodwill gesture could lead to escalation. Possibly, in acknowledging the arguments and firmness of the Polish President, the Commission chose this course of voluntary restraint and decided not to impose the relocation mechanism on Poland, contrary to what it had previously indicated,”
he explained.
“Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick”
He stressed that this would “demonstrate the effectiveness of the tactic known in English as ‘speak softly and carry a big stick’ – the so-called ‘big stick diplomacy’ used by U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.”
“Between the lines of the President’s letter, one could read that if the European Commission did not yield, Poland would resort to effective civil disobedience and invoke a legal provision allowing a member state to exclude itself from actions in the field of internal affairs, namely Article 72 of the EU Treaty. And if an unfavorable decision were made, Poland would simply, physically close its borders,”
concluded Jacek Saryusz-Wolski.