Tusk: Poland will no longer comply with EU’s Dublin Regulation on returning asylum seekers

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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.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has indicated that his country will no longer comply with the Dublin Regulation, an EU legal act that allows asylum seekers to be returned to the member state in which they first applied for protection.

Such a move would mark a further escalation in the Polish government’s increasingly tough line on migrants and asylum seekers. Tusk’s announcement prompted the European Commission to remind Poland that “all member states are required to fully comply with current asylum rules”.

The so-called Dublin system came into force in 1997. It outlines that the first member state in which an asylum seeker files a claim for protection is thereafter responsible for processing that application.

If the asylum seeker subsequently moves to another member state while their claim is still being processed, that second country can return them to the first. In recent years, for example, Germany has annually sent back hundreds of such asylum seekers to Poland.

Separately, Germany has, since reintroducing controls on its border with Poland in 2023, turned back thousands of migrants who do not have the legal right to be in Germany.

Speaking at a press conference today after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, Tusk declared that he wants to end such returns.

“We know very well there is an agreement on so-called readmission between Poland and Germany,” he said. “In addition, there is the so-called Dublin [system], i.e. the treaty obligations of European countries that, if someone registers as an asylum seeker then travels to another country, that other country has the right to turn them back.”

“I informed my German partners…[that], because of the migration pressure, because of how many refugees we have from Ukraine, because we have this problem on the eastern border, Poland will not implement these points of the treaty,” declared Tusk. “We will not accept migrants from other European countries.”

“If not everyone understands us, then to be honest I will not cry about it,” added the Polish premier. “Poland already carries enough burdens related to the war [in Ukraine] on its shoulders for anyone to dare to add more burdens there.”

Since 2021, tens of thousands of migrants and asylum seekers – mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – have sought to irregularly cross into Poland from Belarus with the assistance and encouragement of the Belarusian authorities. Many who do make it across subsequently head for Germany.

After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Poland also became the primary destination for refugees fleeing the conflict. It remains home to almost one million Ukrainian refugees, the second-largest figure in Europe, behind only Germany itself.

Last autumn, Tusk set out a tough new strategy intended to clamp down on illegal immigration and bogus asylum claims. Among the measures would be the right for the government to temporarily suspend asylum claims in certain areas in an emergency situation.

The prime minister has also repeatedly declared his government will not comply with the EU’s new migration and asylum pact if it requires Poland to receive asylum seekers from other member states or to pay financial contributions instead of taking them.

On Friday afternoon, Polish broadcaster RMF asked the European Commission for a response to Tusk’s announcement regarding the Dublin Regulation.

A spokesman said that they are aware “that Poland is facing a specific situation on its eastern border, where migration is used as a weapon by Russia and Belarus”. He noted that the commission in December pledged to support countries facing those challenges “to clarify the legal framework” around asylum.

However, he also emphasised that the commission remains committed to proper implementation of the Dublin Regulation. “All member states are required to fully comply with current asylum rules,” he said.

The government’s proposal to allow the suspension of the right to asylum was approved by parliament last month. But it is still awaiting a decision from President Andrzej Duda, who can sign it into law, veto it, or send it to the constitutional court for assessment.

At his press conference today, Tusk urged Duda, an opponent of the government, to sign the bill as soon as possible. Human rights groups, including the UN’s refugee agency, have, however, condemned the proposed asylum rules as a violation of both international and Polish law.

The prime minister today also hit out the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party, with which Duda is aligned, who have accused the current government of being soft on migration.

Tusk noted that the number of asylum seekers returned to Poland by Germany in 2023, when PiS was still in power, was higher than under the current government.

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 (under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 PL)

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.