Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz met in Warsaw, with Tusk declaring a “new opening” in their countries’ relations.
This followed Germany implementing unilateral migration policies, closing it’s doors to asylum claims for undocumented migrants.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk is particularly concerned that this policy could result in migrants being stranded in Poland and emphasized that Poland would not accept Germany “sending” migrants to its territory, whilst German Chancellor Friedrich Merz confirmed that there was no risk of Germany doing so, but that undocumented migrants will seeking to enter Germany from Poland will find that they are turned back to Poland.
Despite opening the EU’s external borders when Donald Tusk was he was President of the European Council (2014–2019), Tusk is now advocating for addressing migration at the EU’s external borders and enforcing the borders more effectively.
Aligning with Merz’s campaign stance, both Donald Tusk and Friedrich Merz confirmed that asylum applications should be made in the first EU country of entry and that it was lawful to turn down any later applications for asylum made in other countries – but UK commentators have highlighted that the UK Labour Government is too weak to enforce this rule.
This follows after Sweden slammed the door shut to asylum seekers – and its government is now boasting of achieving “net negative immigration” with asylum applications dropping to a forty-year low, having introduced mandatory language and integration tests for anyone seeking citizenship. The policies of the moderate swedish government have won support from the hard right and have made it easier to revoke residency permits. The new government is also reviewing all previous asylum cases and will be expelling thousands as well as all non-swedish criminals. This comes just a year after Prime Minister Fredruk Reinfeldt pleaded with his people to “open your hearts” to refugees and “have patience with what is about to happen”.
Although Liberal-minded Swedes less than a year ago argued that accepting refugees was the correct thing to do, like in the UK, areas housing refugees soon became associated with high levels of crime and unemployment and waves of gang crimes and a tsunami of shoplifting – all blamed on the poorly implemented integration policies. olice say local gangs have started to openly recruit children on social media. The migrants have been targetting children as young as 11 sexually as well as using them via “digital marketplaces” to commit crime, bombings and murders and as a result the Swedish government has since responded by seeking evidence of language ability and integration before qualifying for citizenship and making it easier to revoke residency and confine those not qualifying to special detention centres.