They crossed freezing water reaching up to their shoulders. An alarm sounded. Border guards sent dogs after them. The group of friends were beaten and kicked. Their phones were destroyed. Then they were forced back across the border into Belarus.
As they walked back towards Grodno, snow began falling. One of Bakari’s companions had lost his shoes in the water. Soon, he collapsed. Nobody was strong enough to carry him. They stayed with him for 15 minutes, until he died. Then they continued walking.
This story is not unique.
One year after Poland suspended the right to seek asylum, accounts like Bakari’s are piling up. What was presented as a temporary emergency measure has become a permanent system.
Poland is not an outlier. It is a warning.
As member states prepare to implement the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum this summer, the Polish-Belarusian border offers a glimpse of Europe’s near future.
From Emergency to Normality
In 2021, Belarus was accused of orchestrating a “hybrid warfare” operation by facilitating the arrival of migrants at the EU’s eastern frontier.
Poland responded by erecting a border wall and openly carrying out violent pushbacks into Belarus.
Initially, the European Commission condemned these actions, reaffirming the right to seek asylum and the principle of non-refoulement. But the political momentum quickly shifted. Rather than restraining unlawful practices, EU institutions began adapting the law to accommodate them.
The Commission proposed an ‘Instrumentalisation Regulation’, allowing member states to derogate from asylum obligations when migration was allegedly used as a geopolitical tool.
A substitute impact assessment concluded the proposal conflicted with international human rights law and primary EU law, and the regulation ultimately failed in the Council. Yet the concept survived.
Through the Pact’s Crisis and Force Majeure Regulation, instrumentalisation was reintroduced. A crisis may now be declared when a third country is deemed to encourage migration “with the aim of destabilising the Union”. There are no numbers attached to this; under the new framework, restrictions on access to asylum procedures can be triggered by even a handful of arrivals.
The measures are framed as temporary, but Poland demonstrates how temporary quickly becomes permanent.
When Warsaw introduced its national asylum suspension, officials insisted it would be used only in exceptional circumstances and limited border areas. Instead, it entered into force within hours.
By summer 2025, the suspension – despite technically being limited to the border area – was applied nationwide to anyone suspected of having crossed via Belarus, no matter where they were.
Legal Safeguards Quietly Disappear
Before the suspension, limited legal safeguards still existed.
Since 2021, lawyers have repeatedly obtained interim measures from the European Court of Human Rights ordering Poland to admit individuals and recognise asylum claims.
In 2025 alone, the Court granted 114 such measures, rejecting only 13 applications.
But from December 2025 – following an open letter from 27 member states, spearheaded by Italy and Denmark, calling for a reevaluation of the European Convention on Human Rights – rejections suddenly became the norm.
The Pact Exports This Model
Poland’s policy is not detached from the EU’s upcoming migration reform. It reflects the direction that the Pact itself legitimises.
Across Europe, governments have increasingly followed the same pattern: first violate asylum law, then redesign legislation so the violation becomes lawful.
Proposals for offshore detention centres, accelerated border procedures, and crisis derogations all move in the same direction – shrinking access to protection while expanding militarised power at borders.
The Pact is just more of the same, but with this new development, member states violating the rights of people crossing borders can now claim compliance with EU law.
A Political Miscalculation
The initial attacks on people seeking safety in Poland occurred under a far-right Polish government.
However, under the supposedly centrist government of Donald Tusk, Poland did not merely continue pushbacks – it introduced a legal framework through which asylum is suspended, border authorities act with impunity, deportations to unsafe countries like Sudan or Afghanistan abound, and unaccompanied migrant children are detained.
Centrist parties across the EU have long presented themselves as the guardians of European values, standing between “us” and the far right.
At the same time, they are adopting the very same language and policies, effectively normalising extremist viewpoints and encouraging the far right to demand ever more.
The Hungarian and Slovenian elections, and the recent Italian constitutional referendum, have seen voters reject attempts to consolidate power through fear. It’s time for governments to deliver on the hopes invested in them, rather than following the extreme right in a race to the bottom.
Across Europe, attacking the basic rights of people seeking safety has been the first step toward broader restrictions on our rights and freedoms.
Reversing those attacks is the first step back to a more honest and democratic politics.
Photograph courtesy of gov.pl. Published under a Creative Commons license.
