Poland will not pay the EU's "migration tax": it refers to assistance to Ukrainians

Poland will not participate in the mechanism of migrant resettlement and will not pay contributions under the EU migration pact. About said minister of the Interior Marcin Kerwinski.

"We have already spent enough money on protecting our eastern border and have accepted war refugees from Ukraine. There is no doubt that Poland will be exempted from any resettlement mechanisms," emphasized Kerwinski before the meeting of EU interior ministers in Luxembourg.

According to him, in the last two years alone, Poland has invested more than 2.6 billion zlotys (about 610 million euros) in protecting the EU's eastern border and now counts on the support of all the countries of the bloc.

Deputy Minister of the Interior and Administration Maciej Duszczyk calculatesthat Poland will receive about 1 billion zlotys (approximately 235 million euros) from the EU budget for 2026 to support migration policy.

"I can say that we are definitely a beneficiary of the migration pact in financial terms, and in fact, the pact is starting to benefit us," he said.

Dushchyk emphasized that migration is generally a positive trend because the Polish economy would face significant difficulties without Ukrainian citizens.

"It's not about numbers. Poland will definitely not accept more migrants in the near future, given that 10 years ago we had 100,000, and today we have almost 3 million. These are mostly Ukrainians and Belarusians, but there is still some social destabilization," he said.

The European Parliament adopted the Migration Pact in April 2024. The document, which will come into force in 2026, stipulates that each EU member state will be obliged to participate in the redistribution (relocation) of migrants or pay a so-called "migration tax" of 20,000 euros for each person not accepted.

For many months, the Polish authorities have been seeking an exemption from the obligation to accept migrants. This was argued, among other things, by the large number of war refugees from Ukraine who took refuge in Poland after the Russian invasion, as well as the situation with illegal migrants on the border of Poland and Belarus.

The special status, which will exclude Poland from the relocation mechanism, will be valid for at least one year. However, due to the exceptional migration situation and Poland's involvement in assisting refugees from Ukraine, this period may be extended further.

The final decision on this issue will be taken by the Council of the European Union within two weeks, voting by a qualified majority after the proposal is submitted by the European Commission.

• Last week, Euractiv wrote that the European Commission is preparing new visa restrictions for third countries due to migration issues.