While the deal was hailed as historic by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, it was sharply criticized by others, including NGOs, alongside both far-right and far-left MEPs.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk vehemently rejected the idea of a relocation mechanism, which would transfer migrants from frontline countries to other EU member nations, vowing to find a way to exempt Poland from it.
“We will find … ways so that even if this pact enters into force in more or less the shape in which it was voted on today in the Parliament, we will protect Poland from the relocation mechanism,” Tusk told reporters Wednesday.
Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also lambasted the deal on social media, calling the pact “another nail in the coffin of the European Union.”
“Unity is dead, secure borders are no more. Hungary will never give in to the mass migration frenzy!” Orbán said. “We need a change in Brussels in order to #StopMigration!”
Budapest and Warsaw have long led the pushback against the migration deal, threatening — and occasionally succeeding — to derail its advancement.
But the former allies have become estranged since the election of Tusk, a center-right former president of the European Council who ousted Orbán’s nationalist buddies in Warsaw, as Poland’s prime minister late last year — making their agreement an unlikely one.
EU member countries must now approve the legislation.
