Polish PM Tusk wants to suspend right to asylum

Brussels – Tensions continue between Poland and Belarus at the expense of migrants who, according to Warsaw, Minsk exploits as weapons in a hybrid war strategy aimed at destabilising the European Union. Thus, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has announced his intention to “suspend the right to asylum” in his country, a move that has already raised more than a few eyebrows both among government allies and at the European Commission in Brussels.

Speaking at a conference of Civic Coalition (KO)—the liberal-conservative party at whose helm he returned to the government a year ago—Tusk said last Saturday (Oct. 12) that the new “migration strategy will include the temporary suspension of the right to asylum on our territory” adding that “the state must regain 100 per cent control over who enters and leaves Poland.”

The premier said that he will seek “recognition in Europe for this decision” and that the latter is motivated by the fact that the right to asylum “is being used” by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, and human traffickers “exactly against the very essence of the right to asylum.” The Polish government, Tusk reiterated, is not willing to “comply with or implement” any EU legislation that “hinders our security,” referring to the New Pact on migration and asylum, the controversial regulatory package with which the Union is seeking to harmonise member states’ migration policies. Warsaw has already said it will not implement the parts on the mandatory redistribution of asylum seekers.

The prime minister’s breakaway seems to have irritated other partners in his coalition government, who were not consulted ahead of time and have expressed fears about the constitutionality of such a measure and its compliance to international and EU law. Tusk said he will present the plan in detail to his allies at a cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow (Oct. 15). And the point will certainly also be discussed at the European Council scheduled for Oct. 17–18, where the leaders of the Twenty-Seven will also address the issues of the unlawful immigration and returns, which will be the focus over the next five years in an increasingly rightward-shifted Union.

However, Brussels has already informed Warsaw that such a move would violate EU law. “Member states have international and European obligations, including the obligation to provide access to the asylum procedure,” said a Commission spokesperson, stressing that defending against hybrid attacks and guaranteeing the right to asylum are not mutually exclusive.

Nothing more than a slap on the wrist so far: although Tusk has always pursued a rigid line on migration, his political affiliation (former president of the European Council, he is a member of the same European People’s Party as the president of the EU executive, Ursula von der Leyen) shields him from a head-on clash with the Commission, unlike his predecessor Mateusz Morawiecki, who comes from the ultranationalist right wing of PiS. In May 2025, Poles will go to the polls to elect a new president, so many observers have read the premier’s move as domestic.

For the past three years, tension has been palpable at Poland’s eastern border due to an increase in irregular entries of refugees (predominantly North African and Middle Eastern) via Belarus. According to Warsaw, this is a deliberate move on the part of Minsk that is part of a broader strategy to destabilise the entire Union through acts of hybrid warfare, which include precisely instrumentalisation of migration flows. A barrier of barbed wire, steel and concrete has been built along the Polish side of the border. Also in Finland, last July, exceptional measures were taken to restrict the entry of irregular migrants from Russia.

The right to asylum is enshrined in the 1951 Geneva Convention and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (adopted in Nice in 2000), which has the same legal value as the Treaties. According to several civil society organizations, the Polish government’s proposal could imply the legalisation of rejections at the border, which are expressly prohibited under conventional international law.