Polish prime minister adds EU migration plans to questions in key referendum

By Jo Harper

WARSAW (AA) – Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced Sunday in a video published on the social media platform X that a third question in a referendum to be held on the same day as parliamentary elections on Oct. 15 will concern the European Union’s relocation of immigrants.

The first question in the referendum will ask: "Do you support the sale of state-owned enterprises?" The second: "Are you in favor of raising the retirement age to 60 for women and 65 for men?" and the third: “Do you support the admission of thousands of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa, according to the forced relocation mechanism imposed by the European bureaucracy?”

The draft EU regulation on migrants is still at a preliminary discussion stage.

A member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the opposition party the New Left, Robert Biedron, on Sunday called the third referendum question "a fake," adding there is no obligation to relocate refugees.

“I received a reply from Ylva Johansson, Commissioner for Home Affairs of the EU, who gave a clear answer to my question about the forced relocation of refugees,” Biedron said, adding the relocation mechanism is voluntary.

Poland's ruling party has since 2015 made combating EU immigration policies a key plank of its appeal to Polish voters.

According to the “Pooling the Poles” micro-blog, the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party is currently averaging 35% support compared with 29% for the Civic Platform (PO), although the gap has been narrowing. PiS is focusing its attacks on PO leader Donald Tusk, who is accused of being too close to Berlin and the EU.

In a spot presenting the third question in the referendum, the prime minister calls Tusk “the greatest threat to our security…Let's not let Tusk, as an envoy of the Brussels elites, demolish security in Poland.”

In the foreign policy sphere, Morawiecki wrote: "We want to live in peace with all countries, in harmony. Also with Russia."

"But when someone occupies your house, you don't go out with an olive branch, but the earth and sky are moved to defend your children, parents, your loved ones " he added.