The Polish opposition is demanding that the government suspend the free movement of people under the Schengen Agreement due to the migrant crisis in Spain’s Ceuta, Przemyslaw Czarnek, a candidate for prime minister from the Law and Justice (PiS) party, said on Monday.
Last week, the Spanish autonomous city of Ceuta, located in North Africa and bordering Morocco, faced a mass influx of migrants. About 60,000 people crossed in one day, while Ceuta itself has a population of approximately 85,000 . Officials in multiple EU member states, including Denmark, Italy, the Czech Republic and Finland, have called for a temporary suspension of Spain’s membership in the Schengen Area.
“We demand action similar to that immediately taken by countries like Denmark and Italy, which do not border Spain but which suspended the Schengen Area and introduced temporary border checks due to the danger posed to Europe by the influx we witnessed last week,” Czarnek told journalists.
He clarified that he demands that Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s government take such action no later than Tuesday.
“We demand that Tusk… take decisive action in the coming days, tomorrow at the latest, to protect Poland and Poles from the consequences of the lack of responsibility and absurd policies of the Spanish authorities that we witnessed last week,” Czarnek said.
The sudden influx of migrants to Ceuta prompted a deployment of additional police, military and civil guard forces from mainland Spain. About 67 migrants died in the unrest that followed, according to media estimates.