The foreign ministry in Warsaw on Monday downplayed local media reports that Berlin had sent back 40,000 illegal migrants who entered Germany through Poland’s border.
Pawel Wronski, the ministry’s spokesman, brushed aside the media reports, saying:
There are no such concerns here. No mechanisms have ever been fully utilized. I know that information has a life of its own, but we are not facing a flood of migrants sent to us by Germany.
Polish internet platform Interia recently reported that Germany is using the Dublin Regulation, an agreement on illegal migrants seeking asylum in the EU, to send some 40,000 people back to Poland, most of whom entered the country by crossing the border with Belarus.
Germany has a long-standing practice of returning migrants to Poland, especially those who crossed the border illegally. Two key mechanisms are used for this purpose. The first is the Dublin procedure, which applies to migrants who have applied for asylum in Poland but then left, for example, for Germany before their case is finalised. Based on the Dublin agreement, which has been in force for more than ten years, Germany has the right to return such migrants to Poland.
The second mechanism is classical readmission, which can be full or simplified. It concerns migrants who are staying illegally in Germany but were previously in Poland. This procedure is based on a bilateral agreement between Poland and Germany.
In recent months, Germany has focused on tightening controls not only at the borders but also internally, which has led to the identification of a large number of migrants who originally arrived in Poland. These people had applied for asylum in Poland in order to stay legally in the European Union, but then moved to Germany.
