EU reminds Poland of obligation to offer asylum after Tusk call to suspend rights

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

The European Commission has reminded Poland that it is obliged under international and EU law to allow people to apply for international protection after Prime Minister Donald Tusk announced on Saturday that he wanted to temporarily suspend the right to asylum.

Meanwhile, a group of almost 50 NGOs, including Amnesty International, has called on the prime minister not to go ahead with the plans. Tusk’s announcement has also prompted criticism from left-wing members of his ruling coalition, who say they were not consulted on the idea.

In a speech outlining a tougher new migration policy, Tusk told his centrist Civic Platform (PO) party that he would seek the “temporary, territorial suspension of the right to asylum”.

He added that he would “demand recognition of this decision in Europe” because it has become clear that Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko and Russia’s Vladimir Putin are exploiting asylum rights as part of their efforts to create a migration crisis on the EU’s eastern borders.

However, asked about Tusk’s announcement on Monday morning, a European Commission spokesman told Politico Europe that member states “have international and EU obligations, including the obligation to provide access to the asylum procedure”.

“We need to work towards a European solution – one that holds strong against the hybrid attacks from Putin and Lukashenko, without compromising on our values,” they added.

On Sunday, a group of 46 Polish and international NGOs – including Amnesty, Greenpeace and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Foundation – issued a joint appeal to Tusk in which they reminded him that the right to asylum is enshrined not only in international law but in Poland’s own constitution.

“The fundamental rights and freedoms that every person is entitled to are not subject to discussion and political bargaining,” they wrote. “They simply must be respected, because that is how we have constructed modern European principles of democracy.”

“We live in difficult and uncertain times of conflicts breaking out all over the world, and we ourselves function on the edge of a war, but this does not exempt us from humanity and from observing the law,” added the groups.

The prime minister has also faced pushback from within his own ruling coalition, in particular from The Left (Lewica) – a junior partner to Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO) group – which said it had not been consulted on the planned new migration policy.

Anna Maria Żukowska, the head of The Left’s parliamentary caucus, called Tusk’s announcement “a wild idea of ​​suspending human rights guaranteed by [international] conventions and the constitution”, reports the Wprost weekly.

“The rule of law also means respect for international law. It showed us the way during the dark rule of PiS. Let’s not stray from this path,” tweeted deputy justice minister Krzysztof Śmieszek of The Left, referring to the former ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party. “The right to asylum is a human right.”

During its eight years of rule from 2015 to the end of last year, PiS also took a tough rhetorical line against illegal migration and some asylum seekers. However, it has expressed scepticism about Tusk’s announcement.

The head of PiS’s parliamentary caucus, Mariusz Błaszczak, said on Monday that the prime minister was using this issue to distract from the government’s other problems, in particular the fact that “the state budget has fallen apart”.

He said that in order to check whether the prime minister genuinely wanted to tackle the issue, PiS will seek to call a referendum on the EU’s planned new migration pact, which includes a mechanism for relocating asylum seekers between member states.

PiS wants the question to be: “Do you support rejecting the forced relocation of illegal migrants, which will cause the risk of a decline in personal and economic security?” It organised a national referendum last year with a similar question, but turnout fell below the threshold required for it to be valid.

In response to criticism of his asylum proposal, Tusk himself took to social media on Sunday to note that Finland, another EU member state, had earlier this year introduced a law allowing it to not accept asylum claims from people crossing the border from Russia.

Meanwhile, justice minister Adam Bodnar told broadcaster Tok FM that the government is aware that “we have constitutional and international obligations” regarding asylum. But there is also “a difficult situation” on the border due to the “hybrid war” being waged by Belarus and Russia.

“I believe that a happy medium must be found between what is postulated in the context of border protection and what is included in international agreements,” said Bodnar.

Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credit: KPRM/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Daniel Tilles

Daniel Tilles is editor-in-chief of Notes from Poland. He has written on Polish affairs for a wide range of publications, including Foreign Policy, POLITICO Europe, EUobserver and Dziennik Gazeta Prawna.