No EU nation has a right to determine whom to allow into the country.

1 November 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)

The great debate in Poland right now is between Donald Tusk (Poland’s Prime Minister) and Karol Nawrocki (Poland’s President), over whether Poland’s Constitution and Government should determine whom to allow into the country (as Nawrocki believes), versus The EU in Brussels determining it (as Tusk believes).

The EU has no constitution but only Treaties, and its Treaty of Lisbon is clear that ONLY the EU possesses this power, no member-nation of the EU does. Here was my conversation today with ChatGPT about this question:

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“Under what EU Treaty was Poland required to cede to the EU Poland’s right as a sovereign state to determine whom it WOULD and WOULD NOT allow in?”

The principal treaty was the Treaty of Lisbon, signed on 13 December 2007 and effective on 1 December 2009. However, Poland had already accepted substantial EU authority over immigration and asylum when it joined the European Union on 1 May 2004.

The Lisbon Treaty strengthened that authority and established the present legal framework under which Poland can be bound by EU immigration and asylum legislation even when the Polish government opposes it.

The crucial provisions are in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).

1. Article 79: Immigration

Article 79(2)(a) authorizes the European Parliament and Council to legislate concerning:

“the conditions of entry and residence”

This includes rules governing the admission of non-EU nationals, although Article 79(5) preserves each member state’s right to determine how many third-country nationals it admits for employment.

Official text: TFEU Article 79.

EUR-Lex

2. Article 78: Asylum

Article 78 authorizes the EU to establish a common asylum system, including rules determining which member state must examine an asylum application, the conditions under which applicants are received, and their entitlement to protection.

Consequently, Poland does not possess an unrestricted unilateral right to refuse admission to every foreign national seeking asylum.

Official text: TFEU, particularly Article 78.

EUR-Lex

3. Article 4: Shared competence

Article 4(2)(j) places immigration and asylum within the EU’s area of freedom, security and justice, where legislative competence is shared.

Under Article 2(2), member states exercise their competence to the extent that the EU has not exercised its own.

Thus, Poland’s sovereign authority over immigration is legally constrained by EU legislation adopted within the powers conferred by the treaties.

EUR-Lex

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4. The decisive subsequent legislation: 14 May 2024

The EU adopted Regulation 2024/1351, part of its Pact on Migration and Asylum.

It established a mandatory solidarity mechanism under which member states must contribute to managing migration pressures, but may choose among relocating asylum applicants, making financial contributions, or providing qualifying alternative assistance.

The European Commission expressly stated on 17 January 2025 that Poland was legally bound by the Pact and had no general exemption from its provisions.

Pappers Politique

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Importantly, the Commission also states that no member state can be compelled to choose relocation specifically, although other obligations, including responsibility for asylum applications, remain applicable.

Migration and Home Affairs

5. The constitutional significance

The decisive distinction is between complete surrender of border sovereignty and acceptance of binding supranational authority over specified aspects of admission.

Poland did not surrender all authority to decide who enters its territory. It did, however, accept treaties permitting EU institutions to establish immigration and asylum obligations that can override contrary national policies.

Moreover, because much of this legislation is adopted by qualified-majority voting, Poland can be legally bound by an EU immigration measure even when Poland votes against that measure.

That is a substantial limitation on independent national decision-making.

Therefore, the answer is the Treaty of Lisbon, particularly TFEU Articles 77–79, together with the earlier accession commitments Poland undertook in 2004. The 2024 Migration and Asylum Pact is a subsequent exercise of those treaty powers, not itself a new treaty transferring sovereignty.

The further historical question worth examining is exactly what Poland agreed to in its 2003 Treaty of Accession, as distinct from the additional authority accepted through Lisbon in 2007. That comparison would establish precisely when, and through which legal instruments, Poland relinquished particular powers to make immigration decisions independently.

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Nawrocki, on 25 November 2025, gave a speech, “My vision of the direction in which the European Union should go”, which said: “Let me be crystal clear: I am a supporter of Poland in the European Union, but I believe that issues such as political and justice systems, or security are reserved exclusively for the Polish Constitution, the Polish President and the Polish government. … There is no European demos; its existence cannot be decreed or codified, and without a demos, there is no democracy. In the Polish vision of the EU, the only sovereigns remain nation–states.” He rejects the Treaty of Lisbon but supports Poland’s being a member  of the EU. He can’t have it both ways. Either Poland must quit the EU, or it must accept what the EU says about this matter.

On 1 November, Simplicius76 headlined “The Constitutional Crisis at the Heart of Poland’s Judicial Coup” and wrote about Tusk’s refusing to accept the order from Poland’s top Court to accept the EU’s authority over this matter. He wrote that

This had just been brought to a head in a July 2026 European Commission “Rule of Law Report”, which highlighted the defiant Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s failure to implement EU law as dominant over the Polish constitution.

From the report:

“The serious concerns related to the Constitutional Tribunal and its case law have been confirmed by the EU Court of Justice.”

“[The Court of] Justice held that Poland had failed to fulfil its obligations under EU law because the Polish Constitutional Tribunal had infringed the principle of effective judicial protection and disregarded the primacy, autonomy, effectiveness and uniform application of EU law, as well as the binding effect of the Court’s two judgments. The Court, in light of serious irregularities vitiating the appointment of three judges of the Polish Constitutional Court in December 2015 and of its President in December 2016, called into question the status of the Constitutional Tribunal as an independent and impartial tribunal established by law within the meaning of EU law. [now atop p. 8:]

The Constitutional Tribunal stated that the EU Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to rule on matters related to the Constitutional Tribunal and that its ruling has no effect on the Tribunal’s functioning. The Constitutional Tribunal declared that the independence test as regards administrative court judges is unconstitutional.

…

Panic erupted in Poland yesterday as a judicial “coup” was declared after the Constitutional Tribunal building was blocked off by police. The drama was kicked off when Tusk-aligned senior judge Anna Korwin-Piotrowska proceeded to unlawfully suspend the Nawrocki-aligned Tribunal president Bogdan Swieczkowski.

The entire saga centers on the struggle between the Brussels-aligned Tusk government and President Nawrocki’s nationalist opposition party, which is hated by the globalists because it seeks to preserve Polish sovereignty in the face of the totalitarian EU system attempting to subvert it.

A nation that’s in the EU can’t “eat the cake and have it too.” Such a nation will either quit the EU, or submit to it. They can’t have it both ways.

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s latest book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.