The Polish government has announced that it’s planning to suspend the right to claim asylum at its border with Belarus temporarily. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said he's intending to introduce a new law to that end within weeks. However, EU officials have already questioned the legality of such a move.
Polish Prime Minister Tusk already announced to members of his ruling Civic Coalition at the weekend that he was planning to suspend the right to asylum at the country's border with Belarus — at least for the time being.
The chief of staff to Tusk later announced on Polish television that draft legislation to that effect will be presented within a few weeks, so that the country is able to suspend asylum applications along its border with Belarus.
Jan Grabiec said that "(i)f someone illegally crosses the Polish border, brought there by Belarusian services as part of hybrid warfare tactics, then the Polish Border Guard is not obliged to accept their asylum applications."
Grabiec referred to the alleged strategy of the Belarus government of flying migrants from the Middle East — mainly Iraq — to its capital, Minsk, and then moving them to the Polish border to cross into EU territory to lodge asylum claims.
Belarus' hybrid war against EU
The European Union, the government of Poland and several other governments, including those of Germany, UK and the US State Department have corroborated those allegations, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarus' closest ally and physical neighbor, is bankrolling and organizing the supposed scheme.
Belarus' President Aleksander Lukashenko has not commented on the claims publicly.
Grabiec did not provide any details of how any of those new measures would be implemented.
However, what is known about the measures is that the Polish cabinet held a meeting to discuss a new migration policy document, which states that if "there is a danger of destabilization of the country due to the influx of migrants, it should be possible to temporarily and territorially suspend the right to accept asylum applications."
On October 15, Tusk, known as a staunch ally of the EU, commented on X that drafting the document was a "difficult but extremely necessary decision," stressing that the new laws would serve the primary purpose of "ensuring security."
EU questions legality of move
Meanwhile, a European Commission spokeswoman told the German dpa news agency that EU member states were not able to suspend their asylum systems in that fashion.
She said that the common rules of the bloc specify that access to asylum procedures to people seeking protection has to be granted.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock also responded to the announcement and called for the rapid implementation of a reformed European Union Common European Asylum System (CEAS) to counteract Poland's decision.
"We as Europeans must jointly resist this hybrid warfare. We should not be allowed to forget that Putin's aim is to divide European society," she said.
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Thousands continue to approach border
Poland's border with Belarus is also part of the EU's external border, and therefore a desirable point-of-entry for migrants and refugees who wish to reach the bloc.
Despite the construction of a tall border fence and the introduction of an electronic surveillance system along the border, migrants continue to attempt to cross the border each day.
Since the beginning of 2024, the Polish Border Guard has recorded nearly 28,000 attempts at crossing the border irregularly, it says.
As the weather grows colder, many migrants risk suffering frostbite and even death in this region of Eastern Europe, as even if they manage to cross the border, they may spend several days, if not weeks in the forest trying to evade border patrols.
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Interior Minister expects 'migration crisis'
The announcement of the draft bill comes as Polish intelligence reports surfaced, suggesting that Belarus is planning to push an even larger number of migrants towards the country's shared border.
Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk told Polish broadcaster TVN24 that there was credible information indicating that "various scenarios [were] being developed in Belarus and Russia" to justify the government's plans to introduce "such a safety valve."
Duszczyk added that Belarus was actively working on a "hot border and migration crisis," by violently forcing hundreds of people towards the border.
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with dpa