Is an asylum exception for Poland feasible?
Poland wants the right to temporarily suspend the right to asylum, Prime Minister Donald Tusk recently announced. What are the chances of success in Brussels and is this an option for the Netherlands? Mark Klaassen, Associate Professor of Immigration Law, comments on the issue in Dutch newspaper ‘Algemeen Dagblad’.
Poland is in a difficult situation as undocumented asylum seekers are sent to the Polish border. Thousands of migrants, especially from the Middle East and Africa, are trying to gain access to the EU through this European external border at Poland. Tusk believes that Putin and Lukashenko are deliberately trying to disrupt the EU in this way and he claims that this violates asylum law, reports the AD.
Mark Klaassen does not expect Poland to be granted an exemption. The EU pact was established after almost a decade of negotiations. The temporary suspension of the right to asylum by a Member State will be seen by some Member States as undermining the migration pact. The pact includes a regulation on dealing with crisis and force majeure situations. This instrument is aimed precisely at dealing in a better way with situations where asylum is being facilitated by third countries.
The Regulation on Asylum and Migration Management also provides for a solidarity mechanism aimed at achieving a fairer distribution of asylum seekers across the EU. Since the EU has just agreed on this entire package of measures, it seems unlikely that a far-reaching policy of suspending the entire asylum law will now be deployed.
All countries in the EU with external borders, such as Poland, ‘are given additional space and resources to protect their borders through this pact.’ The strength of this pact is that it is now a collective agreement between all Member States. 'If Member States disregard this completely, it will become eroded and countries will start pointing the finger at each other again and that’s what Brussels in particular wanted to prevent,' Klaassen said.
The Polish Prime Minister Tusk, however, wants to get a grip on asylum policy, but this requires approval from Brussels. Dutch Asylum and Migration Minister Faber also came away empty-handed following her request for an opt-out last week.
It is likely that the Polish plans will be discussed at the upcoming European summit.
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Read the full article (in Dutch) in AD
Photo: Tim Mossholder through Unsplash