The European migrant crisis in Polish parliamentary discourse

Abstract

The European migrant crisis constitutes one of the greatest challenges of the second Decade of the 21st century. Controlled by the populist Law and Justice, the Polish government has been one of the few to oppose receiving refugees, although it is obliged to through the cooperation of EU states. The authors analyzed 852 parliamentary speeches of 24 Polish political leaders since 2011 to 2019. Considering the analysis results, it is possible to conclude that the more severe the crisis became, the more dynamically the number of reports on the migrant crisis increased in parliamentary discourse. The research confirms that the two biggest parties present dramatically disparate views on the issue. The study also confirms that the views and declarations of the analyzed political leaders are compatible with the views of their electorates.