Poland won't accept refugees

Poland will not take in refugees under a hotly contested EU programme to distribute them among member states because of the Paris attacks, the country's incoming European affairs minister said on Saturday.

"The European Council's decisions, which we criticised, on the relocation of refugees and immigrants to all EU countries are part of European law," Konrad Szymanski wrote on right-leaning website wPolityce.pl.

But "after the tragic events of Paris we do not see the political possibility of respecting them," he said.

"Poland must retain complete control of its borders, as well as its asylum and migration policy," Szymanski insisted.

Szymanski, who is to take the European affairs portfolio in conservative Prime Minister-designate Beata Szydlo's new government, said Friday's attacks in Paris were "directly" connected both to the migrant crisis as well as French involvement in air strikes on Islamic State positions.

He said Warsaw wanted to see the "revisiting of European policy in response to the migration crisis."

Incoming foreign minister Witold Waszczykowski added his voice to Polish concerns, saying Europe needed to "approach in a different fashion the Muslim community living in Europe which hates this continent and wishes to destroy it."