Poland Halts Asylum Claims at Belarus Border and Urges Europe to Follow as Hybrid Warfare Threat

Poland has kept its March 2025 suspension of asylum registrations at the Belarus border in force for 18 months and is now pressing the EU to codify temporary asylum suspensions during "instrumentalized" migration episodes bloc-wide, according to AP reporting 123. Polish Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Duszczyk said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's September 16 proposal for a "European Emergency Response Framework" amounts to EU recognition that the bloc's existing migration pact is "not enough" and that a new EU legal instrument is needed to "suspend normal procedures and have a sort of state of emergency," calling it validation of what he termed "the Polish solution" and citing the July Ceuta crossing of over 70,000 migrants from Morocco as further justification 123. Von der Leyen did not specify which procedures the framework would alter, and the Commission did not respond to AP queries on the details 12. Dutch MEP Tineke Strik and Council of Europe human rights commissioner Michael O'Flaherty said the framework risks legalizing asylum-right curtailments EU-wide and could breach international law, including the non-refoulement principle barring return of people to places where they face persecution, while Polish NGO representative Karolina Czerwinska said sick migrants and minors are routinely denied exceptions despite Duszczyk's assurances that vulnerable groups, pregnant women, children, and those facing persecution in Belarus, retain access 123. The Commission is expected to detail the framework at an October 1 interior ministers' summit, with further discussion at a later European Council meeting 123.