"Nobody wanting to willingly settle in Poland will be deprived of the right to access the Polish asylum granting procedure. At the same time, the Polish authorities will not consent to resettling people forcibly into the country," Szczerski said, as quoted by polish media.
Poland has repeatedly criticized the new EU system of relocating refugees from the bloc's frontier states across other European countries under the mandatory quota system.
Polish officials have argued that the EU Temporary Relocation System is building new barriers since most asylum seekers are looking for opportunities in Germany rather than Poland or other Eastern European states.
Europe is struggling to find a solution to a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. EU border agency Frontex detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015, in contrast to some 283,000 in 2014. Of these, more than 1 million net arrivals streamed into Germany, according to the German Federal Statistical Office.
