“Law and Justice?” Understanding Poland’s asylum policy through the lens of Europeanization

Abstract

This article investigates Poland’s rejection of the migrant relocation scheme that was put in place by the European Union (EU) in response to the 2015 migrant crisis. The conceptual framework of Europeanization is used to demonstrate the process of Poland’s accession to the EU in 2004, and to analyze the developments of Poland’s asylum policy. The body of literature on Europeanization highlights the power that EU acquis communautaire has in shaping candidate countries policies to match the values of the EU. This includes candidate countries adopting the restrictive nature of the EU’s migration policy. Through the implementation of the Amsterdam Treaty, the way in which policy decisions on asylum and migration were made shifted away from the intergovernmental approach towards the community method. This paper will argue that following the shift in decision-making at the EU-level, tension rose between the interests of the EU and its Member States, as not all Member State’s interests were being represented at the EU-level. This paper concludes that in the case of Poland asylum policy failed to Europeanize, and a clear divergence emerged between the interests of Poland as a Member State and the views and priorities of the EU.