Such anti-refugee attitudes appear to have won over a majority of Poles in the space of less than a month. Polling conducted at the beginning of September found that only 43 percent of Poles were opposed to accepting refugees.
Moreover, polling by the Social Research Institute IBRiS released earlier this month found that 37 percent of Poles believed that refugees should be accepted only if the United Nations or the European Union allocated funds to assist them. Another 10 percent agreed to accept only Christian refugees.
The European Union is facing a massive refugee crisis, with an estimated 500,000 refugees fleeing war, violence and poverty in their Middle Eastern and North African homelands entering the countries of the supranational bloc over the past eight months alone.
Last week, the Polish interior ministry conducted an inspection of the country's borders in preparation for a possible influx of undocumented migrants. Earlier, Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz announced that Warsaw could impose border controls should the country's security come under threat. Kopacz called the present situation "the biggest humanitarian crisis since the formation of the European Union," adding that Poland will be prepared to handle the current migration crisis. So far, Poland has pledged to accept about 2,000 asylum seekers.
