Migration pact. “MEPs' list of shame”? No, graphics with errors. Who voted how on the migration pact

The European Parliament votes on April 10, 2024 adopted the most important regulations constituting the so-called migration pact. Its main goal is to improve migration and asylum procedures in the European Union and to help countries subject to migration pressure, i.e. forced to consider especially many asylum applications.

This assistance is related to the so-called a solidarity mechanism that causes great emotions and controversy among Polish politicians. According to the vote in the European Parliament regulation all EU countries will have to help countries under migratory pressure in one of three ways: – admit a certain number of migrants to their territory to consider their asylum applications, – contribute financially, – provide operational and technical support to specific countries.

Since the solidarity mechanism had already sparked political discussions in Poland, immediately after the April 10 votes in the European Parliament, lists were sent on social media showing which Polish MEPs were to vote “for” or “not to oppose” the migration pact. A graphic titled: “This is how the European Parliament voted on the migration pact” with portraits of 25 MEPs became particularly popular. At first glance, it is obvious that it contains errors, because the mentioned Bartosz Arłukowicz, Krzysztof Hetman and Radosław Sikorski are no longer MEPs. In October 2023, Arłukowicz and Hetman became MPs (they were replaced by Witold Pahl and Włodzimierz Karpiński), and in December 2023, Sikorski became Minister of Foreign Affairs (he was replaced by Krzysztof Brejza).

The illustration was distributed on the X website not only on anonymous accounts – e.g comment “Who should I thank for the migration package?” – but also on the profiles of politicians, including MPs from Sovereign Poland and the Confederation. Maria Kurowska from Sovereign Poland wrote: “List of shame of MEPs from #Koalicja13December who supported the forced relocation of illegal migrants.” Her party colleague Sebastian Kaleta: “The opposition has been talking about the migration pact for several days, meanwhile in the European Parliament they are obviously voting as their German patrons tell them to.” And Konrad Berkowicz from the Confederation wrote: “As many as 25 Polish MEPs supported or did not oppose the migration pact, which imposes on member states the 'you accept immigrants or you pay' mechanism.” There are also on site X entrieswhose authors claim that “all Civic Platform MEPs voted for the relocation of refugees.”

However, the information from the above graphical summary does not agree with what was reported on April 10 he wrote on website a safe Poland in Europe.

We explain how the voting of Polish MEPs on the regulation on the solidarity mechanism under the Migration Pact actually went.

Problems with correctly reading the results of the European Parliament's votes may be caused by the fact that the migration pact consists of nine legislative actsand on April 10, MEPs adopted ten legal actsthat change the rules of EU migration policy.

However, the Polish debate on this pact was dominated by the issue of the solidarity mechanism, which is described in detail in the regulation on asylum and migration management. The rapporteur of the motion to adopt this regulation at the European Parliament meeting on April 10 was Swedish MEP Thomas Tobe from the European People's Party – and, among others, based on the name of the rapporteur it is possible to determine which ones vote decided on the adoption of the solidarity mechanism.

Therefore, the regulation implementing the solidarity mechanism under the Migration Pact was passed by 322 votes in favor, 266 votes against and 31 abstentions.. Polish MEPs voted as follows (in brackets we provide the current party affiliation and the electoral committee from which the MEP ran):

Behind: Róża Thun (Poland 2050, European Coalition), Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz (SLD-Labor Union, European Coalition). First, the following also voted “for”: Leszek Miller (independent, European Coalition), Marek Balt, Marek Belka (New Left, European Coalition), Robert Biedroń and Łukasz Kohut (New Left, Spring) – but later they introduced a correction to the vote (read more ).

Against: Joachim Brudziński, Patryk Jaki, Krzysztof Jurgiel, Karol Karski, Beata Kempa, Izabela-Helena Kloc, Joanna Kopcińska, Zbigniew Krasnodębski, Elżbieta Kruk, Beata Mazurek, Andżelika Możdżanowska, Tomasz Poręba, Elżbieta Rafalska, Rafał Romanowski, Bogdan Rzońca, Jacek Saryusz- Wolski, Beata Szydło, Dominik Tarczyński, Grzegorz Tobiszowski, Witold Waszczykowski, Jadwiga Wiśniewska, Anna Zalewska, Kosma Złotowski (Law and Justice, Law and Justice Committee), Magdalena Adamowicz (independent, European Coalition), Włodzimierz Karpiński (independent, European Coalition) , Sylwia Spurek (independent, Wiosna), Krzysztof Brejza, Jerzy Buzek, Jarosław Duda, Tomasz Frankowski, Andrzej Halicki, Ewa Kopacz, Elżbieta Łukacijewska, Janina Ochojska, Witold Pahl (Civic Platform, European Coalition), Adam Jarubas, Jarosław Kalinowski (Polish People's Party, European Coalition).

Abstained: Bogusław Liberadzki (New Left, European Coalition). After the voting correction, the following people joined this group: Leszek Miller, Marek Balt, Marek Belka, Robert Biedroń, Łukasz Kohut.

Did not vote: Adam Bielan, Ryszard Czarnecki, Anna Fotyga, Ryszard Legutko (Law and Justice, Law and Justice Committee), Danuta Huebner, Janusz Lewandowski, Jan Olbrycht (Civic Platform, European Coalition).

Five Polish MEPs belonging to the Socialists and Democrats group – Marek Balt, Marek Belka, Robert Biedroń, Łukasz Kohut and Leszek Miller – submitted corrections after the vote on the regulation (this is made possible by the procedure in the EP). Even though they voted “for”, they intended to abstain from voting. However, in the comments to the voting record it was noted that the voting corrections “are published for information purposes only and do not affect the result of the vote announced in plenary.” Therefore, despite the declaration of willingness to abstain, the votes of these five MEPs were counted as “for” the adoption of the regulation.

The next day – April 11 – MEP Łukasz Kohut explained as follows interview on RMF FM radio correction of the vote: “There was a correction because we actually made a mistake. We received information from our assistants that a given vote was simply later, the final one, but it was earlier and we changed our votes and we abstained.” He later repeated it in Tok FM radio: “We have corrected it [nasze głosy]. There was simply a technical error during this vote, it happens sometimes. (…) We had it coordinated by our offices and we simply received wrong voting instructions organized by our offices. We all made this mistake, that's why we reacted so quickly.”

To sum up: all PO, PSL and PiS MEPs who took part in the vote were against the regulation from the Migration Pact, which introduces the solidarity mechanism. The votes “for” were cast by Róża Thun and Włodzimierz Cimoszewicz. Initially, also Marek Balt, Marek Belka, Robert Biedroń, Łukasz Kohut and Leszek Miller – but later they corrected the vote and declared they would abstain from voting. Seven Polish MEPs from PO and PiS did not take part in the vote.

Thus, a graphic popular on the Internet presents a false picture of the vote: it shows three former MEPs who did not take part in the vote and were presented as having voted “for” or as having “no objection”; in the case of 14 out of 25 MEPs, it provides incorrect information about their vote, and in the case of five MEPs – who introduced a voting correction – it provides imprecise information.