The UN refugee watchdog earlier warned that the EU-backed policy on the Belarusian border would violate international law
Poland is on the verge of approving a controversial bill that would entail refusing to accept most asylum claims from migrants arriving from neighboring Belarus. The policy, which has yet to be formally approved by President Andrzej Duda but has the EU’s blessing, has been criticized as violating international law.
In February, the Polish parliament approved a bill allowing the right to apply for asylum at the Belarus border to be suspended. The move is aimed at countering what Polish officials have described as “hybrid warfare” tactics by Belarus and Russia. Both Moscow and Minsk have denied orchestrating an influx of migrants into the EU.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, Prime Minister Donald Tusk noted that the bill still needed Duda’s signature. “It is not my job to rush the president. Of course, I know the constitutional powers… I know that he still has time. But we, Poles, do not have time, because… every day we record 100, 150, 200 attempts to cross the border illegally,” he said.
According to RMF FM, Duda was “very irritated” by Tusk nudging him publicly. The outlet added, however, that the president “often emphasizes that he is in favor of strengthening our eastern border, so there will be a signature.”
Back in 2024, the EU backed Tusk’s plan to suspend asylum claims, with the European Council stating at the time that “Russia and Belarus… cannot be allowed to abuse our values, including the right to asylum, and to undermine our democracies” and voicing support for the push to secure the bloc’s external borders.
However, in February, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees warned that the proposed legislation would violate the international and European law, recalling that countries cannot return asylum seekers to a place “where they would be at risk of persecution or serious harm.” Human Rights Watch also criticized the bill, arguing that it would “formalize ongoing unlawful and abusive pushbacks at Poland’s border with Belarus.”
The crisis began in 2021, when thousands of migrants – mainly from the Middle East and Africa – began crossing into Poland from Belarus amid tensions between Minsk and the West. The EU imposed sanctions on Belarus over allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, a claim Minsk has vehemently denied.
In January, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko signaled that he had no intention of shielding Poland from a migrant influx. “We do not fight against migration and people who want to live there [in the EU]… They slapped my people with sanctions, and I have to protect them? No way,” he said at the time.
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