The referendum on the EU's migration package, which will be held on the day of Poland's autumn parliamentary elections, will decide the fate of Poland and of Poles, Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the leader of the ruling party, said on Saturday.
Mr Kaczynski told Polish public news channel TVP Info that
the referendum "is extremely important [...] because it will decide the fate of Poland and of Poles, and whether they can live in a safe and peaceful country".
The referendum was proposed by Law and Justice (PiS), the majority ruling coalition party in Poland, after a preliminary agreement on a compulsory solidarity mechanism for the relocation of migrants within the European Union was reached at a meeting of EU interior ministers in early June.
According to an earlier statement by government spokesman Piotr Muller,
the referendum would contain a single question for citizens to answer: should Poland agree to the mandatory relocation of migrants
Poland's Lower House of Parliament (Sejm) on Friday evening voted in favour of an amendment to the law that would allow a referendum to be held on the day of the parliamentary elections. The legislation now goes to the opposition-majority Senate for approval. Polish President Andrzej Duda has not yet decided on the date of the autumn parliamentary elections.
Holding the referendum on migration and the parliamentary elections in tandem is being criticised by the main Polish opposition group, the Civic Coalition (KO), and also being opposed by the second largest opposition group, the Left. Among the opposition parties, the right-wing Confederation and the Kukiz'15 are in favour.
Donald Tusk, president of the Civic Platform (PO), KO's largest party, said on Saturday that PiS had "cynically invented" the migration referendum "solely for the sake of the elections". The government has no "real migration policy", Tusk added.
At the end of June, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, referring to the planned referendum, stated his government would reject the EU's migration mechanism "on behalf of millions of Polish citizens". Earlier, the prime minister had also said:
We will not give in to forced resettlement. Poland opposes human traffickers dictating EU regulations.
The mechanism was rejected by Poland and Hungary at both the EU interior ministers' meeting in early June and also at the Council summit of the heads of state and government at the end of June.
Cover photo: Polish Deputy Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski (Photo: AFP/Wojtek Radwanski)
