WARSAW, Poland — Poland’s ruling social gathering desires to ask voters in a referendum whether or not they assist accepting “hundreds of unlawful immigrants from the Center East and Africa” as a part of a European Union relocation plan, the prime minister mentioned Sunday, as his conservative social gathering seeks to carry onto energy in an October parliamentary election.
Mateusz Morawiecki introduced the referendum query in a brand new video printed on social media. It indicated that his social gathering, Legislation and Justice, is in search of to make use of migration in its election marketing campaign, a tactic that helped it take energy in 2015.
Poland is internet hosting greater than one million Ukrainian refugees, who’re primarily white and Christian, however officers have lengthy made clear that they think about Muslims and others from totally different cultures to be a menace to the nation’s cultural id and safety.
EU inside ministers in June endorsed a plan to share out duty for migrants getting into Europe with out authorization, the foundation of one of many bloc’s longest-running political crises.
The Polish authorities desires to carry the referendum alongside the parliamentary election, scheduled for Oct. 15. Morawiecki mentioned that the query would say: “Do you assist the admission of hundreds of unlawful immigrants from the Center East and Africa beneath the pressured relocation mechanism imposed by the European forms?”
The video saying the query contains scenes of burning vehicles and different avenue violence in Western Europe. A Black man licks an enormous knife in obvious anticipation of committing a criminal offense. Get together chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski then says: “Would you like this to occur in Poland as nicely? Do you wish to stop being masters of your individual nation?”
Leaders have introduced two different questions in current days. One will ask voters for his or her views on privatizing state-owned enterprises and the opposite will ask in the event that they assist elevating the retirement age, which Legislation and Justice lowered to 60 for girls and 65 for males.
The questions are set as much as depict the opposition social gathering, Civic Platform, as a menace to the pursuits of Poles. The professional-business and pro-EU social gathering, which ruled from 2007 to 2015, raised the retirement age throughout its time in energy, favored some privatization and signaled a willingness to just accept just a few thousand refugees earlier than it misplaced energy.
The video takes purpose straight at Civic Platform chief Donald Tusk, a former president of the European Council. “Tusk is the best menace to our safety, he’s the best menace to Poland’s safety,” Morawiecki says. “Let’s not let Tusk — as an envoy of the Brussels elites — demolish safety in Poland.”
Europe’s asylum system collapsed eight years in the past after nicely over one million individuals entered the bloc — most of them fleeing battle in Syria — and overwhelmed reception capacities in Greece and Italy, within the course of sparking one of many EU’s largest political crises.
The 27 EU nations have bickered ever since over which nations ought to take duty for individuals arriving with out authorization, and whether or not different members must be obliged to assist them cope.
Initially Poland was neither an entry nation nor a vacation spot nation for migrants and refugees. It grew to become a front-line state two years in the past when migrants started crossing from Belarus, one thing European authorities view as an effort by the Russian ally to generate turmoil in Poland and different European nations.
Poland responded by constructing a big wall on its border. It has not too long ago elevated its army presence on the border fearing an uptick in migration and different attainable instability.
In addition to disagreements over migration, Legislation and Justice has lengthy been in battle with the EU over a notion by the bloc that the Warsaw authorities has been eroding democratic norms.