Polish leader defends decision to suspend asylum rights

WARSAW – Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Monday defended a plan to suspend the right to asylum, as human rights and civil society organizations said fundamental rights must be respected.

Poland has been struggling since 2021 with migratory pressures on its border with Belarus, which is also part of the external border of the European Union.

“It is our right and our duty to protect the Polish and European border,” Tusk said on X. “Its security will not be negotiated.”

Successive Polish governments have accused Belarus and Russia of organizing the mass transfer of migrants from the Middle East and Africa to the EU’s eastern borders to destabilize the West. They see it as an element of a hybrid war that they accuse Moscow of waging against the West while the latter has continued its large-scale invasion of Ukraine for almost three years.

Some migrants have applied for asylum in Poland, but before their applications are processed, many cross the EU’s free movement zone to Germany or other Western European countries. Germany, where security fears are rising after a series of extremist attacks, recently responded by expanding controls at all its borders to combat irregular migration. Tusk called Germany’s decision “unacceptable.”

Tusk announced plans to suspend migrants’ right to seek asylum at a convention of his civic coalition on Saturday. It is part of a strategy that will be presented at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

The decision does not concern Ukrainians, who benefit from international protection in Poland. The United Nations estimates that around a million people from neighboring Ukraine have taken refuge in Poland fleeing the war.

Dozens of non-governmental organizations urged Tusk in an open letter to respect the right to asylum guaranteed by international conventions signed by Poland, including the Geneva Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as well as by Poland’s own constitution.

“It is thanks to them that thousands of Poles, women and men, found refuge abroad in the difficult times of communist totalitarianism, and we became one of the greatest beneficiaries of these rights,” says the letter.

It was signed by Amnesty International and 45 other organizations that represent various humanitarian, legal and civic causes.

Those who support Tusk’s decision argue that international conventions date from a time before state actors organized migration crises to harm other states.

“The Geneva Convention dates back to 1951 and no one really predicted that we would have a situation like on the Polish-Belarusian border,” Maciej Duszczyk, a migration expert who serves as deputy interior minister, said in a statement. interview on private radio RMF FM. .

Tusk argued that Finland had also suspended accepting asylum applications after facing migratory pressure on its border with Russia.

“The right to asylum is being used instrumentally in this war and has nothing to do with human rights,” Tusk said on X on Sunday.

A spokesperson for the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, acknowledged the challenge posed by Belarus and Russia, and did not explicitly criticize Tusk’s approach.

“It is important and imperative that the union protects the external borders, and in particular vis-à-vis Russia and Belarus, two countries which have exerted strong pressure on the external borders over the last three years” , said Anitta Hipper during a press briefing on Monday. . “This is something that undermines the security of EU member states and the Union as a whole.”

But she also stressed that EU member countries are legally required to allow people to seek international protection.

Hipper noted that the commission intends to “ensure that member states have the necessary tools to respond to these types of hybrid attacks.”

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Associated Press writer Lorne Cook in Brussels contributed to this report.

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