Poland will oppose migrant quotas says ambassador to EU

Poland will oppose any EU plans to introduce obligatory migrant quotas for the member states, Andrzej Sados, Poland's ambassador to the EU, said on Wednesday in response to rumours that the European Commission (EC) wants to reinstate quotas.

According to a PAP source, the quota proposal came on Wednesday from Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner for home affairs, at a meeting with the standing ambassadors of EU members.

If any country rejects taking in a quota they would have to pay, according to the proposal, around EUR 22,000 for each person they refused to accept.

Sados said Poland will not agree to quotas. Poland, along with other EU states, bitterly opposed quotas when they were first introduced in 2015 at the outset of the migration crisis in Europe.

As a result, the country was placed under an EU law violation procedure.

According to the PAP source, Sados told Johansson at the Wednesday meeting that demanding payment of EUR 22,000 for each un-admitted migrant stood in "crass disproportion" to the EUR 200 per capita the EU has channelled in aid for the more than one million Ukrainian refugees currently residing in Poland

The source said the EC plans to relocate from 30,000 to 120,000 migrants to EU countries.