Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk criticized Germany’s move to toughen its land border controls.
Tusk argued on Sept. 10 that the issue should instead be dealt with at the European level and called for urgent consultations with other affected countries and more support for Warsaw’s own immigration policies.
Warsaw–Berlin relations had been warming since Tusk and his pro-EU coalition took power in December 2023, but German reluctance to commit to joint financing for the European Union’s defense and strengthening of its eastern border has caused frustration in Poland.
Poland, by virtue of its location on the eastern frontier of the 27-nation bloc, has been facing a migration crisis since 2021 that it claims is being masterminded by Belarus and Russia.
Germany recently hardened its stance on immigration following a surge in arrivals and a spate of stabbings committed by asylum-seekers.
On Sept. 9, Berlin announced plans to impose tighter controls at all of the country’s land borders with other EU countries, which are ordinarily part of the Schengen free-movement zone, for six months starting on Sept. 16.
Tusk told a meeting of Polish ambassadors in Warsaw that “such actions are unacceptable from the Polish point of view.”
“Today, we need full support from Germany and the entire EU when it comes to help in organizing, financing, arming the eastern border, also in the context of illegal migration,” he said
Tusk said that Poland didn’t require tighter controls on its western border with Germany but rather more engagement from Berlin and others in securing the external border of the EU.
“In the coming hours, we will contact other countries affected by Berlin’s decisions for urgent consultations on action on the EU level,” he said.
Tusk said the decision was a reaction to failed German policies on immigration from the past, not to failures from Poland’s side.
The Polish prime minister has also cancelled a trip to Potsdam, Germany, where he was set to receive an award for “strengthening democracy.”
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was set to deliver a speech in Tusk’s honor at the ceremony, has also withdrawn from the event because of “scheduling conflicts.”
Germany hadn’t commented on Tusk’s statements, nor on his decision not to attend the awards ceremony, by publication time.
Recent deadly knife attacks in Germany in which the suspects were asylum-seekers have stoked concerns over immigration.
Last month, a fatal stabbing by a Syrian asylum-seeker in Solingen left three people dead.
The perpetrator claimed to be inspired by ISIS, and the terror group claimed responsibility for the attack.
In June, a knife attack by an Afghan immigrant left a police officer dead and four other people wounded.
The success of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party earlier this month in a state election in Thuringia, after it campaigned heavily against migration, has also pushed Scholz’s Social Democratic Party-led coalition to clamp down on the issue.
Recent revelations relating to the bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines in 2022 also may have led to some souring of relations between Berlin and Warsaw.
In June, Germany issued a European arrest warrant in connection with the bombing for a man named only as Volodymyr Z., a Ukrainian citizen believed to be in Poland.
Polish authorities, however, said Volodymyr Z. was not detained because he wasn’t included in a database of wanted persons, which meant that the Polish Border Guard had no knowledge of him and no grounds to detain him. He was therefore allowed to cross the border back into Ukraine.
While there seemed to be outrage in Germany over the revelations that Ukrainian citizens may have been behind the bombing, Tusk’s response was that all patrons of the Nord Stream pipelines should simply “apologize and keep quiet.”
