When the border crisis, Belarus allowing immigrants to gain access into the EU through their neighbors borders, hit Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia 3 weeks ago, the migration rules were put into question. As the crisis has continued the EU has grown more wary of how Poland and the baltic states evaluate the asylum seekers that are present at the border. The EU has proposed a plan that will allow asylum seekers quicker course of action, but the plan seems to greatly weaken the protections of which the asylum seekers have. The plan includes that asylum seekers are prohibited from certain border points rather than others. This action could be problematic due to the fact migrants wouldn’t be able to go to any border point to claim asylum, but rather the migrants would have to walk and use whatever transportation that one has much farther in any conditions. The waiting period to have been registered as an asylum applicant would also rise to 4 weeks rather than 10 days. The applicants could also be kept at the border for up to 16 weeks as the application is being reviewed, rather than being given accomadities in the country. Only basic conditions would be allowed at the asylum camps like water, food, and medical supplies.
I believe that yes the conditions that have fallen on the border the last weeks have been unfathomable, but there should be no reason that any human’s life should be put at any lower risk. If the EU thinks this plan is safe for the asylum applicants and will also be able to help the crisis then, yes it should be used. But reading through this article it made it seem like just because these immigrants want a better life they will have to stay in the dangerous conditions that they are already in. And yes the EU does need to help the issue at the Poland borders and Belarus but there should be a better way rather than risking decreasing the already awful conditions.
This connects to class because through geopolitics it seems that Belarus has used its own geography as a weapon, if what the EU is saying is true about how the border crisis started. Belarus, after breaking international law because of human rights abuses, was given powerful sanctions on many officials including President Lukashenko. After these sanctions, Belarus went on the defensive trying to maintain both security and power, by allowing immigrants from the middle east to get to the EU to seek asylum through their borders, as Belarus’s neighbor states are in the EU. Some could also say that Belarus was also acting in the realistic perspective, due to the fact that they are protecting their sovereignty from the sanctions and EU. The EU is acting more in the liberal perspective by taking a more diplomatic approach, in the happening by placing sanctions rather than sending troops and just placing sanctions. This is also the case for how they are handling the border crisis, in a more diplomatic way.