Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, has warned that Polish plans to formalise rapid ‘push-back’ procedures at its eastern frontier risk putting the continent’s post-war human-rights architecture “on a cliff edge”. Speaking to EUobserver on 21 September, O’Flaherty reacted to comments by Poland’s deputy interior minister Maciej Duszczyk, who boasted that Warsaw’s suspension of the right to seek asylum at the Belarus border had inspired a forthcoming EU “emergency response framework”. Poland already operates a temporary measure—renewed repeatedly since 2021—that allows border guards to deny all applications for international protection along sections of the Belarus border and to summarily remove people caught crossing irregularly. The government argues that the policy is necessary to counter what it calls “state-engineered migration” by Minsk. Critics, including the Council of Europe and dozens of NGOs, say the practice violates the 1951 Refugee Convention and EU asylum law. Warsaw now wants broader derogations from the UN convention to be tabled at the next European Council summit in mid-October. According to Polish media cited in the EUobserver report, officials are drafting legal language that would allow frontline states to refuse entry whenever “violence or coercion” accompanies an attempted crossing. Human-rights advocates fear such wording could legitimise blanket push-backs and set a precedent for other EU external borders. If adopted at EU level, the move could reshape corporate mobility programmes that rely on the predictability of Schengen external-border rules. Employers sending assignees through Poland may encounter longer screenings, more document checks and a higher bar for humanitarian exemptions. Companies already operating near the Belarus border report having to adjust duty-of-care and travel-security protocols, including rerouting employees via Lithuania or Latvia. Legal advisers urge multinationals to monitor the October summit and any subsequent amendments to Poland’s Act on Granting Protection to Foreigners. “Businesses with internationally mobile staff should build extra lead time into assignment planning and keep contingency budgets for emergency accommodation in neighbouring EU states,” says one Warsaw-based immigration attorney. “The regulatory climate is shifting quickly, and non-compliance penalties are steep.”
Source: EUobserver
