Poland has requested a full exemption from the EU’s plan to help member states deal with the burden of migration, Politico reports.
Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński announced the decision to request an exemption for Poland on the 12th of November, saying that Poles have been saying for months that there is no agreement on mechanisms for relocating asylum seekers. The minister added that Poland is facing huge costs from guarding the EU’s borders, and the country is facing migration pressure from Belarus and has taken in large numbers of refugees from the Ukrainian war.
The European Commission announced on the 11th of November the countries that will be subject to the requirement to help accommodate asylum seekers and which countries will be exempted from it. The EC has indicated that Poland, like Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic and Estonia, is experiencing great pressure from migration and can therefore request to be granted exceptional status. The redistribution of migrants across all the bloc’s countries is a plan that stipulates a certain number of asylum seekers to be taken in. If this is not done, a certain amount of money must be paid according to the number of people, or other types of assistance must be offered (for example, sending human resources to the country where it is needed).
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk also confirmed that the decision has been made – Poland will not take in migrants, and will not make the so-called solidarity payment either.
The Polish government has called the EC’s plan a great success, and announced that
Warsaw has been trying for months to get Poland to be ranked among the countries suffering from migration pressure.
Government spokesman Adam Szłapka told reporters that EU partners know that Poland is feeling the impact of migration and should therefore not be burdened with more.
The European Commission’s annual migration assessment shows that between June 2024 and July 2025, irregular crossings of EU borders fell by 35% compared to the previous 12-month period. However, several countries in the bloc are still feeling the effects of illegal migration and the migrant crisis orchestrated by Russia and Belarus.
Tusk’s enthusiastic statement marks a sharp change in attitude. In 2021, when he was trying to gain as broad a support as possible from voters, he called migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border “poor people trying to find their place.” Migration is a key issue in Polish politics, and most parties, both in the coalition and in the opposition, oppose accepting asylum seekers according to EU quotas.
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