EU EASTERN BORDERS: Estonian Border Guards to Support Latvian Colleagues on Latvia-Russia Border ― Finland Enacts Controversial New ‘Pushback Law’ ― Hungary Faces Renewed Criticism from Both EC and FRA ― Lithuanian Border Guards to Support Latvian Colleagues on Latvia-Russia Border ― Poland Allows Border Guards to Use Firearms Against People Trying to Cross Poland-Russia Border | European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

Officers from Estonia’s Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) will be sent to the Latvia-Belarus border to help their Latvian counterparts to prevent irregular crossings.
On 22 July, Finland’s new law aimed at preventing people seeking asylum from entering the country via its border with Russia came into effect.
The European Commission (EC) and the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) have published reports that are highly critical of the state of the rule of law in Hungary and the country’s failure to investigate human rights violations against people trying to enter its territory irregularly.
Lithuania is planning to send a team of border guards to Latvia to support the latter’s border management efforts on its border with Russia.
Poland’s parliament has approved a measure to allow border guards to fire live ammunition at people who try to cross the Poland-Belarus border irregularly under certain conditions.

Officers from Estonia’s Police and Border Guard Board (PPA) will be sent to the Latvia-Belarus border to help their Latvian counterparts to prevent irregular crossings. According to Estonian Public Broadcasting (ERR), following a request from Estonia in late July, an 11-person PPA team will travel to Latvia for two weeks in early August. It is the ninth time that Estonia has sent a PPA team to Latvia to assist with border management since 2021.

The PPA is also strengthening the infrastructure on several crossings along the Estonia-Russia border. ERR has reported that new and stronger traffic barriers will be installed on the Luhamaa, Koidula and Narva border crossings in the coming years. The head of the Narva border crossing, Marek Liiva explained the rationale behind the planned changes to the barriers: “These should then also, perhaps in the future, help to better deter a so-called hybrid attack. If there is a threat of mass immigration or a desire to push these individuals across the border, as there were groups of them here at the end of last year, these will also help to better deter such activity against us or in our direction”.

On 22 July, Finland’s new law aimed at preventing people seeking asylum from entering the country via its border with Russia came into effect. The controversial legislation (officially titled ‘Act on Temporary Measures to Combat Instrumentalized Migration’ but often referred to as Finland’s “pushback law”) was adopted by the Finnish parliament on 12 July and will initially be valid for a period of 12 months. It will allow Finnish border guards to turn away people who want to claim asylum at the Finland-Russia border and to “remove” any people who have already entered Finnish territory. Finnish President Alexander Stubb has claimed that the law has broad support from other European heads of state and government. “Many remarked that the instrument looks good – especially the leaders of Baltic countries. And it may be that they’ll start copying it,” he said after the meeting of the European Political Community on 18 July. The director of ECRE member organisation the Finnish Refugee Advice Centre, Pia Lindfors, issued a scathing assessment of the potential impact of the new legislation. “The rule of law in Finland has been shaken,” she told POLITICO. Her criticism was echoed by the director of Amnesty International Finland, Frank Johansson. “This law makes it possible to do pushbacks, which are always illegal,” he said, adding: “It goes much further than crisis regulation in the new EU migration pact; and it gives a green light to violence on the borders”. Martti Koskenniemi, a law professor from the University of Helsinki, described the Finnish Parliament’s decision to adopt the new law as a “legal mistake”. “It’s a black spot in Finnish constitutional history. And I have no doubt that it will be corrected – sooner or later,” he told Euronews.

The European Commission (EC) has issued a damning verdict on the state of the rule of law in Hungary. Following the publication of the 2024 Rule of Law Report on 24 July, Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders told reporters that Hungary presented “a real systemic issue for the Commission about the rule of law”. In its new report, the EC noted that no progress had been made on any of the recommendations that it made to Hungary in 2023, including on ‘fostering a safe and enabling civic space and remove obstacles affecting civil society organisations’. In this context, it highlighted Hungary’s failure to repeal legislation ‘in particular the immigration tax’ – ‘a special 25% immigration tax applicable to financial support received by organisations carrying out ‘activities facilitating immigration’’ – that limited those organisations’ capacity to operate.

The EC’s strong criticism of the state of the rule of law in Hungary was followed up on 30 July by accusations that it was failing to investigate human rights violations against people trying to cross its borders irregularly. A new report by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) singled out Hungary, together with Croatia and Greece, as countries which ‘did not effectively investigate incidents of ill treatment and loss of life during border management’. The FRA also noted that, despite ‘credible allegations’ of mistreatment, the three countries made insufficient efforts to locate and hear victims and witnesses, hindered lawyers in their work and did not have access to key evidence (e.g. footage from border surveillance).

The publication of the EC and FRA reports came a week after a number of EU member states (MS) had boycotted an informal meeting of justice and home affairs ministers that the Hungarian government was hosting in Budapest in the context of its presidency of the Council of the EU. Prior to the 22 July meeting, Lithuanian Deputy Minister for the Interior Arnoldas Abramavičius told journalists: “I think this is a reaction towards Hungary’s external activity maybe sometimes not adjusted to the European framework”, adding: “Some countries sent lower level politicians, some countries sent ministers level. I don’t say it is a boycott but kind of an opinion expressed by the member states”. EUobserver described the MS’ decision to “snub” the meeting on migration and security as a “symbolic response to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s visit to Moscow”.

The Lithuanian government has announced that it will receive EU funding for strengthening infrastructure on its border with Russia. Speaking to Žinių Radijas radio on 25 July, Minister of the Interior Agnė Bilotaitė said: “We will receive funding from Europe. There’s now 150 million euros earmarked specifically for strengthening the infrastructure of the eastern borders”. “We don’t see any migrant flows there, but we clearly understand that we need to strengthen the border,” she added.

Lithuania is also planning to send a team of border guards to Latvia to support the latter’s border management efforts. “Latvia has asked for 10-15 officers. And this is the number we are considering,” said Lina Laurinaitytė from the Lithuanian State Border Guard Service (VSAT) on 28 July. Elsewhere, Laurinaitytė’s VSAT colleague, Giedrius Mišutis, reported a rise in “secondary migration” through Latvia. “People who illegally entered Latvia from Belarus or asylum-seekers accommodated in foreigner registration centres are trying to reach the Lithuanian-Polish border through the Latvian-Lithuanian internal border and travel to the West,” he told the Baltic News Service.

Poland’s parliament has approved a measure to allow border guards to fire live ammunition “preventively” or in “self-defence” at people who try to cross the Poland-Belarus border irregularly. The controversial measure, which was approved by the Senate on 26 July, ‘excludes criminal liability for the use of arms or direct force in violation of the rules’ by officers if there is a threat to their safety or to the country. Commenting on the adoption of the new law, Bartek Rumienczyk from the Grupa Granica platform said: “This law will only make an already very difficult situation at the Belarusian border worse”. “Because of the buffer zone, it is already impossible for us to document what is happening in the region, including the violence carried out by the border guards,” he added, concluding: “This will further complicate our work and make the area more dangerous for people seeking asylum”. Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for Europe, Dinushika Dissanayake, was equally scathing in her criticism of the new law. Speaking before it had been adopted by the Polish parliament, she said: “These proposals set a dangerous precedent for the regulation of the use and potential abuse of firearms in Poland and should be rejected. Under international law and standards, the use of force against individuals must be strictly necessary and proportionate to the threat posed; the use of firearms is prohibited except in situations where there is an imminent threat of death or serious injury. Any attempt by the Polish authorities to undermine these principles would be unlawful”. Marcin Wolny from ECRE member organisation the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights expressed disappointment in the government’s failure to adopt a more progressive approach to managing irregular crossings at the Poland-Belarus border. “I believe the government (…) stepped into the shoes of its predecessors because it was convenient,” he said. In a letter to the marshal (presiding officer) of the Senate, Małgorzata Kidawa-Błońska, on 17 July, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights Michael O’Flaherty wrote that the proposal may provide “a disincentive for state agents deployed in the border areas, or in other situations within its scope, to act in respect of the rules on the proportionality in the use of force and firearms” and that it could “foster a lack of accountability and suggest a lack of commitment to human rights obligations”.

In addition to urging the Senate to refrain from adopting firearms law “in its current form”, Commissioner O’Flaherty also wrote to Prime Minister Donald Tusk to express his concerns about “the continuing practice of summary returns of persons across the border to Belarus, without an individual assessment, putting them at risk of refoulement and other human rights violations” and the “impact of the buffer zone on the provision of humanitarian and legal assistance to people stranded in the border area, on human rights monitoring, and on the right to information”. In his letter to Prime Minister Tusk, O’Flaherty recognised the “challenges posed by the instrumentalisation of irregular migration” but clarified that “the problems which states may encounter in managing migratory flows or in the reception of asylum seekers cannot justify having recourse to practices that are not compatible with the ECHR”.

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