Over a third of Poles prefer fines to accepting refugees: poll

The survey by daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna found that 29 percent of Poles support the country accepting refugees, while 57 percent oppose the idea.

Meanwhile, 29 percent said that fines from European institutions would be worse for Poland than accepting refugees.

Asked about which nationalities Poland should accept as asylum seekers, 27 percent responded that Ukrainians should be given refuge, followed by Czechs (25 percent), Slovaks (24 percent), Belarusians (19 percent) and Lithuanians (18 percent).

Only 14 percent said the country should accept refugees from Syria.

Around half of the respondents said “none of the above”.

In mid-May, the European Union said that Poland and Hungary have until June to start accepting refugees or face sanctions.

“I call on Poland and Hungary, who have not relocated a single person... to start doing so right now,” EU Migration Commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos told reporters.

In September 2015, EU leaders agreed that each country would accept a number of asylum seekers over two years to alleviate the pressure on Greece and Italy, which have seen the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers from the Middle East.

EU leaders agreed to relocate a total of about 100,000 refugees of more than two million people who arrived in Europe since 2015.

However, only 14,000 migrants from refugee camps in countries along the Mediterranean coast have been relocated in the EU. Poland, which had been assigned 6,200 refugees, has not taken in any of them.

(rg)