At the start of July, Poland announced that it would be implementing temporary controls along its borders with Germany and Lithuania, threatening the viability of the increasingly fragile Schengen zone. The move follows recent efforts by the government of Donald Tusk to tighten migration laws, including affording authorities the power to suspend asylum claims. Warsaw’s decision to harden its stance on immigration, and ‘regain control’ of its borders, has arisen in response to the increasing weaponization of migrants and asylum seekers by Moscow and its allies. Migration and border security has subsequently been reframed in Poland as an issue of national security, as the country grapples with this new form of hybrid warfare from its neighbors.
The conversation around mass and irregular migration in the EU has shifted considerably in recent months, with increased and widespread frustrations about current levels. In Germany, shortly after Friedrich Merz’s election victory in May, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt expressed his new government’s intentions to impose stricter border laws immediately, which promised to reject asylum claims at the border, in line with campaign promises. The decision ramped up tensions within the bloc immediately, earning condemnation from Poland, followed by this month’s retaliatory border checks. This escalation and tightening of previously porous borders comes at a time when nearly a third of all countries in the Schengen travel zone had also signaled their intentions to bring back border checks.
Whilst Poland may not be alone in its decision to reintroduce border controls with fellow Schengen countries, it is alone in the nature of the threat it is facing from irregular migration. Bordering both the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad and the Russian vassal of Belarus, Poland is in the unenviable position of dealing with two hostile states simultaneously. Since 2021, Belarus has engaged in the weaponization of migrants and asylum seekers, forcing considerable numbers across the border into Poland in an attempt to overwhelm the country’s authorities. In response, Poland has steadily militarized this shared boundary as well as constructing a border fence kitted out with modern surveillance technology.
In light of these experiences, it is understandable why Poland has taken such issue with Germany’s recent tightening of its own borders. Unlike Belarus, Poland is not a pariah state seeking to destabilize its neighbors. Yet rather than coming to the aid of Poland, an EU and NATO ally, Germany is instead adding the problem. Under Merz’s new guidelines, Germany is now able refuse asylum for those whose claims appear dubious, with the Federal Police authorized to turn migrants around at the border. This policy could plausibly lead to a situation where Poland is confronted by an influx of migrants on both its eastern and western flanks at the same time.
The fact that many of the asylum claims Germany consider illegitimate are likely from those who have crossed into Europe from Belarus, adds to the shortsightedness of this policy. By greatly restricting border crossings of asylum seekers from Poland, Merz is offering an inefficient and temporary fix that does little to address the root cause of the issue. Not only will Germany’s tighter border controls do nothing to prevent Belarus from continuing to pursue its policy of flooding Poland with irregular migrants, but it will also add to the issues facing Warsaw. Instead, Germany, along with other EU and NATO members, must come together to treat Poland’s Belarussian problem as a matter of both national and continental security, rather than fragmenting and becoming increasingly isolationist in their approaches to the issue.
After all, there is no denying the clear strategic gain that this evolving crisis is bringing Vladimir Putin and his allies. Whilst it is not clear if Belarussian President Aleksandr Lukashenko is orchestrating this strategy under the direction of his Russian counterpart, this strategy, coinciding with the Ukraine war, is ultimately serving the Kremlin’s overarching ambitions of destabilizing the EU. Lukashenko himself stated the aim of this policy was to ‘flood the EU with migrants and drugs,’ yet with security ramped up along the Polish-Belarussian border, it is still managing to weaken the bloc, as demonstrated by increasing tensions between Warsaw and Berlin. For Putin, whether or not Lukashenko is successful or not is irrelevant: either way, the EU is that bit more distracted and disunited, while Russian troops continue to march through Ukraine.
The particularly sinister aspect of Lukashenko’s strategy is that it forces Poland and its EU allies to choose between national security and humanitarian obligations. Many of those being ferried to EU borders by Belarus are genuinely vulnerable individuals in search of better lives. Yet the risk of hostile actors hiding among them cannot be dismissed. In August 2023, fears that mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group were seeking entry into Poland sparked anxiety in Warsaw and an influx of troops to the border to meet the potential threat. More recently, in the UK, three men were charged with spying on behalf of Iran after having migrated to the country by irregular means. This news came just weeks before British government sources suggested that Russia may be behind the escalating small boats crisis facing the country, with the same intent seen in Eastern Europe, to overwhelm authorities and polarize society.
Equally concerning to Warsaw is the sheer scale of irregular migration arriving via Belarus. Earlier this year, President Lukashenko announced plans to accept up to 150,000 Pakistani foreign workers to address Belarus’ labor shortages. The decision came following a visit to Minsk by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and was accompanied by a series of agreements on military cooperation and trade. Despite the official rationale, Belarus’s EU neighbors, including Poland, could be forgiven for viewing this development with suspicion. While these Pakistani workers may well be arriving to fill labor gaps, past behavior has demonstrated just how readily Lukashenko is prepared to exploit migrants as instruments in broader geopolitical tensions. Whilst there may well be a legitimate demand for foreign workers, it would come as little surprise if the 150,000 Pakistanis become pawns in Belarus’ future tussles with the EU.
In reframing migration as a matter of national security Poland is reflecting the broader trends emerging across the West. In the United States, having just passed his ‘big, beautiful bill,’ President Trump has transformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) into one of the best funded agencies in the country, with a budget surpassing what many countries allocate to their defense. For the EU, the message is clear. If it hopes to confront the threat posed by Belarus and its Russian patron, then it must adopt a similarly serious approach and work collaboratively with its members to prevent this new form of hybrid warfare from overwhelming its frontline states. Failure to act not only risks undermining the EU’s external borders but also weakening its internal unity at a time when cohesion is so critical.