At a meeting of interior ministers on Thursday, the adoption of a new EU migration pact by a majority vote, obliging member states to take in quotas of migrants and imposing fines on them for failure to do so, has sparked huge anger in some EU member states.

By a majority vote, the EU’s interior ministers adopted the Council’s position regarding the EU’s asylum scheme reform. The approved document, which contains a general approach, on asylum cases, envisions that an EU distribution mechanism will essentially allow the illegal migrants themselves, or the people smugglers who transport them to Europe to decide who will live in Europe, some member states argue. There were two votes against cast during the meeting – one from Hungary and onme from Poland – while five governments abstained.

The pact is worrying on several levels, Polish pro-government politician Radosław Fogiel told Poland’s TVP1 station, adding that

„it shows that the EU is suffering from a serious disease. In order to circumvent the rules and the treaties and to prevent the vetoes, these decisions are taken at an EU interior ministers’ meeting, where even a simple majority is enough.”

Poland, he said, argued that this issue should be decided at an EU summit, where there is a veto. What happened on Thursday is a perfect example of how EU authorities today are trying to circumvent the rights of sovereign countries through institutional and technical games, the member of the Polish parliament’s foreign affairs committee said. Mr Fogiel underlined that Poland had not, and „will never agree to this type of deal.”

„It is bizarre to pass such decisions in a situation where Poland has taken in millions of refugees. I’m not talking about economic migrants, but about genuine war refugees from Ukraine,”

he pointed out. The politician of the Law and Justice (PiS) party also contended that he would like to hear a clear answer from the European Commission on „what would happen to these resettled migrants in concrete terms.”

„We are fully aware that they are coming to Europe, but they are not coming to Poland to live in Warsaw, Radom or Siemiatycze… and they are not coming to Slovakia to live there. They want to reach Germany, France, the Netherlands. In theory, resettlement simply means that they’ll get off the bus and go back to Berlin, so I would like to hear from all those enlightened Europeans what we should actually do. Should we keep them in camps, or ban them from traveling? This is not customary in Poland,”

he said. The Spanish conservative VOX party also reacted to the events by issuing a brief statement:

Countries must accept with a broad smile monsters, like the child-murderer in France, otherwise Brussels will punish them.

Los países acogen a monstruos como el infanticida de Francia porque Bruselas te multa si les dejas fuera. pic.twitter.com/NGZSnAiTla

— VOX 🇪🇸 (@vox_es) June 9, 2023

The Austrian Freedom Party (FPO) was convinced, even before the pact was approved, that this was Brussels’ way of circumventing EU laws. The EU’s migration policy should focus on stopping illegal migrants who abuse the the system of asylum rights, and not on continuing to facilitate their arrival,” Harald Vilimsky, the head of FPO’s European delegation said.

The European Commission is doing all it can to force through the mandatory distribution of migrants among all EU member states. Brussels’ aim is not to halt illegal migration into the bloc, but simply to manage it, in a different way. And this would be disastrous, because it would send out a signal that we have enough space for new arrivals,”

the right-wing politician said, noting that this is something that Brussels now dares to describe as „compulsory solidarity”.