Germany urges rapid EU reform as Poland moves to suspend asylum right

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Tuesday for rapid implementation of a reformed European Union Common European Asylum System (CEAS) as the Polish Cabinet discussed suspending the right to asylum.

Speaking in Berlin on meeting her North Macedonian counterpart, Timčo Mucunski, Baerbock said the new package should be “decided now with ambition and implemented.”

The Polish Cabinet discussed the suspension of asylum rights on Tuesday.

Poland and the EU accuse Russian President Vladimir Putin and his ally, Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko, of deliberately directing migrants from crisis regions to Poland’s eastern border with Belarus. The border is simultaneously the EU’s external border.

EU member states and the European Parliament agreed on a reform to the CEAS in December after lengthy debate. The reforms provide for the rules on asylum procedures to be tightened.

Baerbock said Putin was using migration as a weapon. “We as Europeans must jointly resist this hybrid warfare. We should not be allowed to forget that Putin’s aim is to divide European society,” she said.

EU unity was essential particularly with respect to migration to ensure that populists were not allowed to make sweeping generalizations regarding certain groups to malign them, Baerbock said.