NGOs condemn Donald Tusk’s plan to fortify Poland’s eastern border

NGOs in Poland and abroad have criticised Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s announcement that he intends to temporarily suspend the right apply for asylum in his country.

The proposal is part of a wide-ranging strategy approved by Tusk’s Civic Coalition party. According to initial versions of the document published by Polish media, the plan includes limiting the number of people who can apply for a visa, making it harder to obtain a Polish passport, and introducing programmes to help migrants better integrate into Polish society.

The strategy also proposes that Brussels allow EU member states to temporarily suspend the right to submit asylum applications — a move that the European Commission has already warned could be unlawful.

The premier’s plan is largely seen as a response to the crisis on Poland’s 400-kilometre border with Belarus.

Since 2021, thousands of people have attempted to cross into Poland through thick forests in temperatures that drop to below zero in the winter.

Tusk has said that his government does not want to terminate international agreements that guarantee the right to asylum.

Instead, he says the current rules are inadequate in situations that threaten national security such as the Polish border, where he and others in his government say Russia and Belarus are actively encouraging migrants to try to cross in an attempt to destabilise Europe.

NGOs say that the proposal would do little to tackle problems that exist along the border, a site where both deaths and brutal pushbacks — an illegal process whereby refugees and migrants are sent back across the border they have attempted to cross — have been reported.

“The suspension of the right to asylum at the border is in some ways de facto a reality for us. Particularly in recent weeks, most people who try to cross into the border in Poland never begin the procedure,” said Dominika Ożyńska from the Polish NGO Egala.

Part of the government’s strategy includes giving more powers to border guards, allowing them to detain foreigners at the border who they deem a threat to Poland’s safety.

“We are afraid that a verbal statement like the one made by the prime minister will give the border guards a certain impunity to continue abusing the existing laws at the border,” said Ożyńska.

In a statement announcing the policy, Tusk said that “the Polish state has lost control over the wave of illegal migration”, citing figures relating to temporary visas. Between 2018 and 2023, Poland issued more than 6 million visas, 3.8 million of which were work visas.

But Ożyńska points out that the number of people successfully applying for asylum into Poland via the Belarusian border is relatively low.

According to data collected from border guards and published on the Ombudsman’s website, Polish border guards accepted only 3,172 applications for international protection at the Polish-Belarusian border between 1 January 2023 and 15 September 2024.

The first safe country

“The measures could mean that people will be forced to try to cross in an unregulated way,” Ożyńska said. She points out that the measure would mean Germany could de facto take the place of the first safe country in the EU for people to seek asylum, meaning a longer and more dangerous journey for those moving eastward.

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Some NGOs working at the border say that tightening measures will not deter people from crossing the border, and risks simply making the process more dangerous.

Aleksandra Kramer, a humanitarian worker with Grupa Granica, said that turning away asylum seekers at the border puts them at risk of human traffickers.

This has been echoed by a report published by The Council of Europe’s Group of Experts on Action Against Human Trafficking, which says migrants who remained at the border between Poland and Belarus for prolonged periods were at a high risk of falling prey to human traffickers.

Amnesty International said that Tusk’s proposal endangers the rights of those who “may have been subject to violence and trafficking, or lured to EU borders under false pretences.”

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The government has said that those with a legitimate asylum claim would still be treated “favourably” and could be offered temporary stays on a humanitarian basis, but it has yet to provide further details on how this would be implemented.

Tusk has been critical of moves other countries have taken to strengthen their borders. He has said that Germany’s recent decision to introduce border checks for six months will create obstacles for Poles travelling legitimately to Germany without actually tackling the flow of irregular migration.

Migration is set to dominate a summit for European leaders in Brussels on Thursday, with Italy’s landmark deal to send migrants to offshore processing centres on Albanian soil catching other governments’ attention.