At a meeting with his Polish counterpart Beata Szydlo earlier this week, Löfven came up with a clear message: Poland must begin taking more responsibility for refugees or it could lose international support.
"This is the perennial message to Poland. Everyone has to take responsibility, if we are to remove internal border controls, then this has to work as well. The fact is also that the Swedish people should not be a net contributor to the EU, only to be left alone with the responsibility for refugees. This won't stand," Stefan Löfven said, as quoted by Swedish national broadcaster SVT. He also added that it was impossible for a member state to indulge in "cherry-picking" while ignoring its responsibilities.
During the same meeting, Prime Minister Beata Szydlo ventured that Poland would also like to find a compromise, but cited the widespread resistance to receiving refugees. Two years ago, 25 percent of Poles were opposed to receiving refugees fleeing from war and conflict. Today, 74 percent of Poles say no.
"They say they want to find a solution, but so far, it has not meant actually receiving refugees, which is the core issue," Stefan Löfven said.
Last year, only 390 refugees were granted asylum in Poland, which has a population of 38 million. This is only a fraction of roughly 70,000 asylums granted in Sweden, which has 10 million. The former Polish government reluctantly pledged to receive 7,000 of the refugees to be redeployed from Greece and Italy, but this pledge was later revoked by the very same Beata Szydlo.
"We want to be a homogeneous society with one culture, one religion and one ethnicity. We can see from other European countries how devastating a mix of cultures has been," Mateusz Plawski, spokesman for the Christian nationalist youth movement Mlodziez Wszechpolska ("All-Polish Youth"), which has been protesting the former government's decision, told SVT.
"I do not mean to say that all Muslims are terrorists, but they have a completely different culture that does not fit here. We know how it is. First we only receive a handful, but then there'll be more and more. It's the tyranny of little steps. We hope to avoid receiving even small numbers, for it's the only way to avoid catastrophic development," Plawski continued, adding that a dose of xenophobia was actually good for Poland.
"If we do not solve this issue, it will harm EU cooperation, which benefits neither Sweden nor Poland," Löfven said.
Sweden's Migration Minister Morgan Johansson called for EU measures against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, venturing that the refugee problem has to be solved jointly.
"Our patience is running out," Morgan Johansson said, as quoted by Swedish Radio.
Earlier this year, Norway also threatened to withdraw its financial subsidies for Poland over financial disagreements. By 2021, Poland is scheduled to receive $882 million from EEA countries, mostly Norway. However, Poland wants the money earmarked for building civic society to be managed by a state-run entity, whereas Norway requires the cash to be handed out by an independent body.
