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'Old' Europe trying to shift refugee burden: Polish PM hopeful

09 September 2015, 13:52 CET
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(KRYNICA) - Tipped as Poland's next prime minister, conservative opposition candidate Beata Szydlo on Wednesday accused veteran EU states of trying to unfairly burden poorer newer members by seeking to impose refugee quotas.

"If politicians from the 'old' EU try to transfer equal responsibility on all other members, they're just defending their own interests," Szydlo told reporters at a forum in the southern mountain resort of Krynica.

"There's an attempt to shift responsibility for the sake of a superficial solution," argued Szydlo, the conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party's candidate for premier in the October elections.

With a population of 38 million, Poland has been asked to accept nearly 9,300 asylum seekers under a new plan laid out on Wednesday by EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- whose country expects 800,000 asylum claims this year -- has urged the EU to go much further with a proportional distribution of refugees and no limits on actual numbers.

"What we've heard from German politicians and Mr. Junker is an attempt to pressure us," Szydlo said, urging the government to "resist it."

"The situation is out of control," she said.

"There is no idea, no strategy and no real plan of action."

Poland's new President Andrzej Duda has also rejected a proposed system of compulsory quotas for relocating asylum seekers from overstretched frontline states like Greece and Italy.

Running a distant second in the polls ahead of the October 25 vote, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz has long rejected the idea of fixed quotas but has said Warsaw would consider taking in more than the 2,000 asylum seekers it previously agreed to.


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