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Migrants on the Polish-Belarusian border
Photo: Viktor Tolochko / imago images / SNA
For weeks several thousand people have been trying to get from Belarus across the EU's external borders to Poland or the Baltic states (read more about the situation here).
The EU Commission has now presented proposals to temporarily suspend some of the rights of migrants.
Poland, Latvia and Lithuania would therefore be allowed to extend asylum processes and simplify deportations.
The proposal provides that the authorities in these border countries have longer to register asylum applications - four weeks instead of the previous ten days.
The asylum process should take up to 16 weeks, according to the Commission's wishes.
During this time, people are usually placed in reception centers near the border.
The Commission also wants to allow easier and faster deportations.
The measures are now to be adopted by the Member States.
"Fundamental rights are not touched," said migration commissioner Ylva Johansson.
She presented the plans on Wednesday together with Commission Vice-President Margaritis Schinas.
The European Union accuses the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko of targeting people from crisis regions to Minsk in order to smuggle them into the EU.
Poland allows journalists to go to the border under supervision
After massive criticism, Poland wants to give journalists access to its border with Belarus in an organized manner.
From now on, media representatives can request one-day guided visits to the region under the supervision of the border guards, said Vice Interior Minister Blazej Pobozy in Warsaw.
The border guards will decide on the exact place and time of these trips.
Representatives of aid organizations will still not be allowed into the region on the border.
In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, the three-month state of emergency that Poland had imposed for a strip of three kilometers along the border expired.
Two hours earlier, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski had made use of a new law and decreed extensive restrictions on freedom of movement for the border strip, which in most respects resemble the conditions of the state of emergency.
as / dpa
