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.