Poland Pushes EU to Allow Temporary Asylum Suspensions

Poland is pressing the European Union to permit temporary suspensions of asylum applications during episodes of what it calls "instrumentalized" mass migration, seeking to extend a contested border policy across the 27-nation bloc.

Warsaw stopped registering asylum applications from migrants entering from Belarus in March 2025, framing the move as a temporary emergency measure against what it described as a push by Russia and its ally Belarus to destabilize the country by directing tens of thousands of migrants toward the EU. The policy has now remained in force for 18 months.

The Poland-Belarus border runs for about 400 kilometers (250 miles). Since 2021, EU authorities have accused Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko of weaponizing migration by luring people to his country to find an easier entry point into the bloc than the more dangerous Mediterranean routes.

Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk, who handles migration, said the EU had come to recognize that the problem was not confined to the Polish-Belarusian frontier and could arise in various regions of the bloc. He said Brussels had decided to draw on Poland's experience with the instrument Warsaw proposed in 2025 to protect that border and avoid being instrumentalized by hostile regimes.

"We are happy that what we've been saying for a year, or a year and a half, is now becoming mainstream in the EU," Duszczyk said in an interview. He pointed to the July border crisis in Ceuta, when more than 70,000 people suddenly crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave in North Africa, as a moment that made the EU realize other countries could face similar crises.

The prospect of an EU-wide approach appeared to move closer on Sept. 16, when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU executive branch would soon propose a new "European emergency response framework" for cases of "engineered and weaponized" mass migration. The framework would allow for "flexibility" in applying standard migration procedures under specific circumstances and for a limited period, she said.

Von der Leyen did not specify which procedures would be made flexible. It remains unclear what form the proposed framework would take, whether it would need approval from the EU Parliament and EU leaders, and how soon it might come into practice. The European Commission did not respond to requests to list those procedures.

Duszczyk also called for the European Court of Human Rights to take a broader view of today's challenges, describing the appeal as a request for tools to implement a genuine migration policy while guarding against potential future populist governments. He questioned whether human rights should protect a person's right to remain in a country where they have committed a crime.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has argued that the country is not dealing with asylum seekers but with an organized, highly efficient operation carried out on many levels to breach the Polish border and attempt to destabilize the state.

The approach has drawn criticism. Michael O'Flaherty, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, said the closing of the possibility to make an individualized application for asylum is very problematic from the point of view of human rights law.

Anna Blaszczak-Banasiak, Deputy Polish Ombudsman, said Poland's solution may be original but is at the same time illegal, calling that its fundamental flaw because it does not respect basic human rights standards.

Karolina Czerwinska of the NGO Association for Legal Intervention said she is concerned that legalizing such mechanisms leads to the dismantling of a legal order in which human rights should be at the center. She said Poland, as a frontline country, should work to ensure human rights remain a focus for EU states, because one day Poles too may have to rely on them.

Tineke Strik, a Dutch member of the European Parliament, said she fears von der Leyen's new emergency framework is poised to take the Polish model EU-wide and legitimize the curtailing of asylum. "If you normalize it, if you make it the default policy of all EU member states, you are not falling outside of the framework," she said. "It simply has been legalized."