Poland pledges to resettle 2,000 asylum seekers

Poland has agreed to voluntarily accept 2,000 migrants from Syria and North Africa by 2017, Poland's ministry of internal affairs informed on Thursday. "The deputy minister declared today during an informal meeting with his counterparts in Luxembourg that Poland would be ready to host 2,000 people by 2017," the ministry's spokeswoman Małgorzata Woźniak said. "Our goal is to show solidarity with other EU countries, solidarity which Poland has experienced before." Poland had earlier refused to accept the European Commission plan that was based on imposing obligatory quotas. At the Luxembourg meeting, ministries of internal affairs agreed to resettle 40,000 asylum seekers who are already in Italy and Greece. Another 20,000 migrants coming from their countries of origin would be relocated around the bloc.