Donald Tusk, the new Polish Prime Minister for a year, is not just anyone: historic leader of the center-right liberal party (PO), he was Prime Minister for the first time from 2007 to 2014 before serving as important European functions when the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) was in power in his country: he was, thus, president of the European Council (2014-2019) and head of the EPP (2019-2022), the Parliament group European Union bringing together center-right MEPs. Positions that allowed him to continue his domestic political battle via the EU authorities, by working to have his own country condemned by the European Union for “illiberal excesses”. The last of these convictions dates back to June 2023, just a few months before the elections which brought him back to power, at the head of a coalition.
However, here is this pure Europeanist, who has never ceased to attack his conservative rivals from Law and Justice, precisely on questions of immigration and on their opposition to the demands of the EU in this area, has just bring about a spectacular turnaround this Saturday, October 12. He in fact announced that he wanted to suspend “ partially » the right to asylum for migrants who enter his country illegally and that he would ask the EU to endorse this measure! During a gathering of his movement, Civic Coalition, he gave a very harsh speech against immigration, announcing that Poland would fight “without thanks” against illegal immigration. “ I say it out loud todayhe declared, that among the elements of the migration strategy will be the temporary territorial suspension of the right to asylum “. The Polish Prime Minister has increased his attacks against the EU migration pact: “ We are not going to respect or apply any European ideas which […] violates our security, and I am thinking here of the migration pact and the context of immigration “. Historic phrases that Giorgia Meloni or any leader of the anti-immigration parties would not deny, starting with her rivals from Law and Justice.
If the Europeanist Tusk took care to justify his change of heart by the migratory pressure exerted by Russia and Belarus, with the war in Ukraine, this new position without saying it embraces that of the majority of the horrified Polish population, as in Hungary , the deleterious consequences of African or Islamic immigration in the EU. The centrist Polish Prime Minister was not afraid to link immigration and insecurity, declaring: “ Poland must be a safe country. Polish men and women must feel free. Safe and free in their own country. Hence the importance of our migration policy “. He sided with a state-controlled immigration policy: “ The state is there to ensure that people come to Poland who want to work honestly, pay taxes, integrate into Polish society and study. ».
With this historic turnaround, the Polish Tusk has just thrown overboard the anathemas launched against the anti-immigration parties by the Europeanists, of whom he was, just a few months ago. Did he feel that the tide was also turning in the other capitals, with the hardening of Chancellor Scholz? Regardless of the sincerity of this about-face, it becomes a powerful argument to ask other EU governments – and ours! – to finally adopt real migratory firmness. This is clearly the line that the Interior Ministers will defend with Ursula von der Leyen’s new Commission. The Point reports that Bruno Retailleau, during their meeting in Luxembourg on Thursday, found allies in his German and Dutch counterparts, with Spain alone clinging to its lax position, as we denounced a fortnight ago. Retailleau is more isolated in Paris, facing his President and his government, than in Europe now! Tusk’s declarations have, in any case, disavowed and made obsolete our national immigrationists, starting with Macron.
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