The EU wants to reinstate the right of refugees to leave Belarus | Refugee Stories

The EU Commission is urging Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to spend more time examining security demands in the midst of the migration crisis.

The head of the European Union (EU) has demanded that Belarus’s border countries be allowed to deal with refugees in accordance with the rules of law, which threaten to undermine the security of refugees.

The European Commission’s (EC) Third Amendment proposal, if approved, could allow the authorities of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia more time to re-register and consider asylum applications, which could result in detention at EU embassies for several months. END.

The development comes at a time when Europe is struggling to tackle the migration problem that the bloc claims was made by Minsk.

The EC offered a four-week deadline – instead of the more than 10 days currently under consideration in EU law – to register applications for protection by people who have crossed the border from Belarus.

It would also allow Poland, Lithuania and Latvia to have registered registrars for up to 16 weeks on their border with Belarus while the authorities review social security requests – but this would prevent them from having the right to detention. place inland.

This needs to be approved by the European Council – an organization made up of leaders of all 27 EU countries – following discussions with the European Parliament.

If they pass, the changes can take effect immediately and work for six months unless they are extended or removed.

Poland-Belarus border problems

The EU has accused Belarus of evacuating thousands of people – mainly from the Middle East – and forcing them to cross the bloc via Poland, Lithuania and Latvia as part of a “mixed attack” in response to Western sanctions against President Alexander Lukashenko. for violating human rights. Belarus denied the allegations.

Monthly migration grew in November, when thousands of people traveled to the borders of Belarus and Poland, seeking to join the EU.

The Polish government responded by sending dozens of police, border guards, and military personnel to try to close the border. Lithuania and Latvia have also tried to block crossings in recent months.

The three countries defend their defense system without reviewing security charges or providing access to security – which human rights groups have said violate EU law and international human rights law.

Their journey has left many people on the fringes of the coldest of winters as winter sets in, unable to enter the bloc but unwilling to return.

Andrew Stroehlein, Europe’s chief journalist at the international human rights organization Human Rights Watch, said the EC’s reforms were evidence of continued carelessness.

“Give the EU Commission a reputation for one thing: resilience,” he tweeted. They do not allow the suffering of humans to affect their thinking.

Give it to me @EU_Commission credit on one thing: inconsistency.

Whether it prevents the production of more vaccines in the epidemic to enhance the benefits of pharma monopoly…

Or to engage in violence and harassment of immigrants…

They do not allow the suffering of humans to affect their thinking.

Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) December 1, 2021

Reducing security

The EC’s view further states that the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum is in place for the human family.

This means that people will not have to seek protection from the Polish, Latvian, or Lithuanian borders and would have to travel many miles through forests, lakes, and wetlands through the east of the bloc to reach the area. selected location.

The idea also allows for faster expulsion of asylum seekers whose forms have been denied.

“We are a family. And when one of us is attacked, the rest of us will be with him. And this is the message we want to make with this package, “said EU Vice President Margaritis Schinas, addressing the issue in Brussels.