Berlin Should Stop Lecturing Warsaw Over Migrants - Polish Deputy PM

Germany should not lecture Poland about showing solidarity with other EU states by accepting thousands of migrants, Poland's Deputy Prime Minister Tomasz Siemoniak said Tuesday.

WARSAW (Sputnik) — Earlier, Polish Prime Minister Eva Kopacz said that Poland could take in about 2,200 refugees over two years, despite the number  proposed by Brussels under its quota scheme was 3,500.

“Germans should not teach us about solidarity,” Siemoniak said, as quoted by the Polish channel TVN24, in response to criticism from the German mass media over Warsaw’s unwillingness to accept the full share of migrants allocated to Poland under the EU-wide system.

He criticized the EU quota system for distributing refugees within the European Union, suggesting that it would be better to deal with the main causes of the influx of migrants to the bloc instead of simply relocating them.

Europe is experiencing a large-scale migration crisis, as hundreds of thousands of refugees attempt to enter the European Union, fleeing their war-torn countries of origin.

On Wednesday, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is expected to present new proposals for the distribution of refugees within the European Union, adding an extra 120,000 people to the group the Commission had previously proposed to relocate.