Spain: Poland and Hungary have rejected a proposed law on irregular migration as the summit of European leaders concludes. Mr. Mateusz Morawiecki, Polish Prime Minister, and Mr. Viktor Orban, Hungarian Prime Minister, shot down a joint document for inclusion by EU leaders.
The move forced European Council President Mr. Charles Michel to issue a separate statement in his name about asylum policy and border protection. The French and German leaders noted that the legislative process on the issue would continue as planned.
Mr. Pedro Sanchez, Spain’s Prime Minister, who hosted the summit in Granada, dismissed concerns about the clash.
“The most important thing is what our interior ministers achieved a few weeks ago with the agreement on crisis regulation, because that is what is really relevant in political terms,” Mr. Sanchez stated.
Mr. Morawiecki stressed that his “veto” on a joint statement on migration “meant that this process will not proceed and Poland has a chance to stop it.”
“The agreement on migration, politically, is impossible, not today or generally speaking for the next few years. Because legally, we are, how to say it, raped. So if you are raped legally and forced to accept something you don’t like, how would you like to have a compromise?” Mr. Orban commented.
The bloc of European nations has remained divided over how to address irregular migration, an issue that is crucial in the continent’s politics and a central focus of far-right parties that have called for heightened restrictions.
Leaders from both of those countries have rejected statements that all European countries should share the distribution of newly arrived migrants. The Polish Prime Minister remarked that he would push back against a “dictate coming from Brussels and Berlin.”
At the end of the summit, European Commission President Ms. Ursula von der Leyen said that the agreement had been “a big success.” “This was an important piece of the puzzle of the whole puzzle of the Migration and Asylum Pact,” Ms. von der Leyen added.
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