Poland has made the call to bring back border controls at its borders with Germany and Lithuania to curb the flood of illegal migrants. All three European Union (EU) countries are part of the Schengen Area, which permits free movement across most of the region.
The European Union has been dealing with a refugee crisis since at least 2015, primarily triggered by turmoil in the Middle East and Africa, and more recently by Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Warsaw has previously accused German authorities of ‘dumping’ thousands of migrants back into Poland. Some Polish activists have set up their own ‘citizen border patrols’ along the German border.
“We remain advocates for freedom of movement in Europe, but only on condition that there is the shared will of all neighbors… to minimize the uncontrolled flow of migrants across our borders,” said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk in a cabinet meeting yesterday, adding that temporary border checks would be put in place on Poland’s border with Lithuania.
In 2023, Germany, which is the European Union’s prime destination for illegal migrants, started temporary border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic to limit the influx. A lot of folks coming into Poland are just passing through to western Europe, where the benefits for asylum seekers are better. Since then, Berlin has kept renewing these controls.
According to the Schengen agreement, European countries can temporarily bring back border checks during emergencies, such as the recent global COVID-19 pandemic.
In response to the reinstatement of control at the Polish-Lithuanian border, Poland’s rime Minister criticized the Baltic nation and its neighbor Latvia for their weak border enforcement. These shortcomings are said to have allowed illegal migrants to traverse from non-EU Belarus and then into Poland.
Since 2021, Poland has been blaming Belarus and Russia for intentionally masterminding the influx of illegal migrants into European Union countries. Both Russian dictator Putin and Belorussian dictator Lukashenko have vehemently denied these claims.
