Polish President Andrzej Duda has criticised prime minister Donald Tusk’s move to suspend allowing asylum applications on Poland’s border with Belarus.
“The announcements of the prime minister in recent days will not serve to secure our border and limit migration,” Duda, an ally of the opposition PiS, told parliament on October 16.
Duda said Tusk’s decision could impact he rights of Belarusian opposition activists claiming asylum in Poland. He also said he does not believe that the suspension will stem the flow of illegal migration.
Duda alluded to the fact most people who illegally crossed the Polish-Belarusian border did not want to apply for asylum in Poland, but who wanted to travel on to Germany or other west European states.
“They will prevent representatives of the Belarusian opposition from seeking refuge in Poland,” Duda said about Tusk’s move.
Poland has sheltered thousands of opposition supporters from its eastern neighbour after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko won an election in 2020 critics say was rigged.
Polish authorities have also been grappling with a migrant crisis on its border with Belarus since 2021. Warsaw and the EU say Belarus and its ally Russia have orchestrated the situation by facilitating the arrival of people from the Middle East and Africa at the border, offering them visas and transportation to the border area.
Duda’s remarks echoed other critics, from NGOs assisting migrants and those on the Left of Polish politics who argued Tusk’s move broke the constitution and international law.
However, Duda said he was pleased the Tusk government had at last joined the former Law and Justice (PiS) party government in attempting to combat illegal migration.
The Polish government approved a new migration strategy on October 15, allowing it to stop accepting asylum applications if an influx of people was destabilising the country.
This measure has outraged human rights activists, but was aimed at a large number of voters concerned about illegal migration.
Tusk explained his decision to put migration centre stage in Poland’s politics in an interview with liberal Gazeta Wyborcza on October 15.
“The future of Europe and Poland will be played out in this area… The only question is whether right-wing populists or liberal democracy will provide the answers,” said Tusk.
The PM’s migration strategy, which also aimed to introduce a more targeted approach to granting visas to workers and students as well as to encourage Poles living abroad to return, was adopted despite dissenting opinions from four left-wing ministers.
The Speaker of Parliament and one of the leaders of the centrist Third Way alliance called the right to asylum “sacrosanct”.
The government’s migration strategy sought to “change asylum procedures so that they cannot be used in hybrid activities, while at the same time taking into account the humanitarian dimension of the situation on the Polish borders”.
The strategy will make it “possible, in the event of the threat of destabilisation of the state by an influx of immigrants, to temporarily and territorially suspend the right to receive asylum applications”.
“Poland cannot allow groups of illegal immigrants, organised and controlled by Russia and Belarus, to cross our eastern border under the pretext of submitting asylum applications,” the document added.
On October 14, the European Commission reminded Poland of its obligation under international and EU law to allow people to apply for international protection.
However, the commission’s statement did not condemn the action in similarly harsh terms to the language it had used to attack Hungary’s attempts to contain illegal migration.
