Poland will temporarily ban migrants from claiming asylum on its territory, Donald Tusk, the prime minister, said on Saturday.
Announcing the move, Mr Tusk said that Warsaw “must regain 100 per cent control over who comes to Poland”.
The Civic Platform party leader said the suspension of the right to claim asylum was needed with Russia-allied Belarus funneling migrants to the Polish border as part of a hybrid war to destabilise the EU.
But Mr Tusk, who was European Council president during the Brexit negotiations, also framed the move as part of wider efforts to toughen Poland’s migration policies.
“If someone wants to come to Poland, they must respect Polish standards, Polish customs, they must want to integrate,” Mr Tusk said.
He said neighbouring Germany, a popular destination for migrants, had “negative experiences” with immigration after ignoring integration. “If there are too many people of other cultures, then the native culture feels threatened,” the Polish prime minister added.
Countries are obliged under international law to offer asylum. To prevent legal challenges, Mr Tusk said he would “demand” the EU recognise the decision, setting up a potential clash with Brussels.
“I will demand this, I will demand recognition in Europe for this decision,” he said. “This is because we know very well how it is used by [Belarusian president Alexander] Lukashenko, [Russian president Vladimir] Putin… by people smugglers, people traffickers, how this right to asylum is used exactly against the essence of the right to asylum.”
Mr Tusk ousted the hard-Right Law and Justice party in an election last year promising to unlock billions in EU funding by reconciling with the bloc’s leaders.
Framing the suspension of asylum rights as needed to counter Lukashenko and Putin may make it more palatable to Brussels.
EU leaders will meet this week in the Belgian capital for a summit set to be dominated by migration and calls to make deportations of illegal migrants faster and easier.
Earlier this year, the bloc adopted a sweeping reform of its asylum policies, hardening border procedures and compelling countries to take in refugees from under-pressure states or pay €20,000 for each they reject in a package due to come into effect in June 2026.
Denmark last week became the seventh EU member state to tighten its border controls. Others include France, Italy, Austria and Sweden.
The UK’s position on asylum has changed markedly since Labour took office in July. The government vowed to scrap the Rwanda removals policy a few days after the election and has introduced a new Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill which is making its way through Parliament.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, has effectively cancelled the previous government’s Illegal Migration Act, which automatically denied asylum to anyone who arrived in the country illegally. Ms Cooper has said the Home Office will use fast-track decisions and returns agreements to clear the asylum backlog.
Both candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party are more hawkish on asylum policies than the Government.
Robert Jenrick has described the UK’s asylum grant rate as “offensively high” and claimed immigration judges are insufficiently scrupulous when assessing claims. The Conservative leadership candidate and former immigration minister has pledged to cut off foreign aid to countries that do not accept the return of failed asylum claimants from their country.
‘There is no more humane policy’
Mr Tusk said he would present Poland’s new migration strategy at a government meeting on Oct 15, the first anniversary of the election which brought the coalition he leads to power.
“There is no more humane policy – in terms of preventing misfortune or death on the border with Belarus – than effective protection of this border”, he told a congress held by his liberal Civic Coalition grouping, the largest member of Poland’s coalition government.
Large numbers of people, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, began trying to make illegal crossings into Poland from Belarus in 2021.
The EU and Poland said that the crisis was orchestrated by Minsk and Moscow in what Mr Tusk has branded a “hybrid war”.
As many as 26,000 migrants have tried to cross the border into Poland, a strong supporter of Ukraine, so far this year and Belarusian border guards have been seen helping the groups.
Belarus is accused of offering visas to would-be migrants and encouraging them to fly to the country as a stop before travelling on to the EU. Some of those caught crossing have Russian visas.
Warsaw has set up a special border zone granting tougher powers to local authorities and investing in stronger border infrastructure.
But Mr Tusk attacked EU migration policy, in particular refugee relocation from under-pressure states to other countries, to head off the challenge of the hard-Right Law and Justice party he beat in last year’s election.
In power, he has continued many of the defeated party’s migration policies, including building a barrier on the Belarus border and pushing migrants back after they have crossed.
He is not the only Brexit chief to launch a crackdown on immigration. Former EU negotiator Michel Barnier is now prime minister of France and has vowed to drive down migrant numbers.
Before Thursday’s summit, more than half of member states are calling for even tougher rules on migration, including the possibility of Rwanda-style offshore migrant processing hubs in countries outside the bloc.
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