From Monday 7 July, Poland will carry out ‘temporary’ border controls at its borders with Germany and Lithuania. That said the Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Tuesday at a press conference .
According to Tusk, the measure is a response to the border controls that Germany performs on the Polish border. During those checks, Germany sends asylum seekers back to Poland. According to Tusk, that caused ‘tensions’ in his country, and a sense of ‘inequality’.
Poland says it has been dealing with a migration crisis for some time. According to the Tusk Government, Russia and Belarus use migrant flows as a weapon to destabilize the EU. At a press conference on Monday, Tusk said that Poland has invested “a lot of time, money, sweat and, unfortunately, blood” to close the border with Belarus ‘hermetically’.
No exception
However, nationalist opposition parties in Poland accuse the liberal government of Tusk to allow large numbers of undocumented migrants. Extreme right -wing activists even carried out ‘checks’ on their own on the border with Germany on their own.
With its border controls, Poland is by no means an exception in Europe. The Schengen treaty, which includes almost all EU countries, in principle states that countries are not allowed to perform border controls. But temporary border controls are allowed in the case of a crisis. On July 1, 11 of the 29 Schengen countries had used that exception to enter border controls, writes news site Polrico.
According to Prime Minister Tusk, Poland wants to adhere to international laws and treaties, but now has no choice. “We have defended the Schengen Convention, and will remain proponents of a Europe without Borders and without travel restrictions,” said Tusk. “But there must also be there at our neighboring countries.”