CENTRAL EUROPE: Austria to start negotiations on migration agreement with Uzbekistan ― NGOs denounce ‘Russian style’ draft law ― Germany to cut funding for independent legal counselling ― Work starting on new fence on Poland-Belarus border ― Swiss government rejects population cap proposal | European Council on Refugees and Exiles (ECRE)

The Austrian government has given the green light to open negotiations with Uzbekistan on a possible migration agreement.
The Czech government is preparing controversial legislation that could tighten rules for NGOs.
The German ministry of the interior has announced that it will stop funding independent legal counselling for asylum applicants in 2027.
Authorities in Poland are set to start building a new fence along part of the country’s border with Belarus.
The Swiss government has rejected a proposal to place a cap on the size of the country’s population.

The Austrian government has given the green light to open negotiations with Uzbekistan on a possible migration agreement. According to the Vienna Online news website, the proposed agreement targets both Uzbek nationals and third-country transit passengers who are deemed ineligible for asylum in Austria, and aims to facilitate flights for deportees whose home countries do not have direct air routes to Vienna. It is also expected that the agreement will introduce exchange schemes for skilled workers, students and researchers. Commenting on the proposed agreement, Austrian Federal Minister for European and International Affairs Beate Meinl-Reisinger stated that the government intended to “take a firm stance against those who have no right to remain in Austria” and that by co-operating with countries such as Uzbekistan it was “creating the necessary framework to consistently implement decisions based on the rule of law and to put an orderly migration policy into practice”.

The Czech government is preparing controversial legislation that could tighten rules for NGOs. According to the Seznam Zprávy news website, under the proposed law, the drafting of which is being supported by Prime Minister Andrej Babiš’s advisor on “freedom of speech”, organisations with “activities connected with foreign ties” or that “receive financial resources, property benefits, services or other similar benefits from foreign entities” would be required to “register in a newly established database, provide a list of employees and their job descriptions, or list all their relations with foreign countries, including financial flows”. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to CZK 15 million (€614,000) or 10% of annual turnover. The draft law has been widely criticised by Czech NGOs. Commenting on the proposal, Tomáš Urban from People in Need said: “We have direct experience with what happens when the state labels an independent organisation a threat just because it co-operates with foreign partners. This happens in dictatorships and authoritarian regimes – in Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and other countries, where we would come closer by adopting a similar law”. “Anyone who says they do not want Putin’s influence in the Czech Republic should be the first to refuse to copy Putin’s law,” he added. Elsewhere, ECRE member organisation the Organization for Aid to Refugees (OPU) issued a press release in which it emphasised that “Preventing such legislation matters because modern democracies depend on international networks: universities work with foreign partners, watchdogs receive cross-border grants, humanitarian groups operate through multinational funding, and media and think tanks collaborate internationally,” and “A law that treats such links as inherently suspicious does not target covert hostile influence precisely; it instead risks shrinking the legitimate civic space on which democracy relies”.

The German ministry of the interior has announced that it will stop funding independent legal counselling for asylum applicants in 2027. According to the CORRECTIV media organisation, the providers of these legal services, for which €25 million had been earmarked in the current year’s budget, were reportedly informed about the decision on 9 March. The announcement by the Christian Democratic Union-led (CDU) ministry has drawn widespread criticism, including from its coalition partner the Social Democratic Party (SPD). SPD MP Hakan Demir told CORRECTIV: “We know how important it is, especially for vulnerable groups, to not only speak with government officials about an upcoming asylum procedure. We will therefore continue to advocate for independent asylum procedure counselling”. Meanwhile, Filiz Polat MP from the opposition Alliance 90/The Greens group highlighted the importance of counselling for people seeking asylum in Germany especially in light of the changes that will be introduced following the entry into effect of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum. “The procedures are becoming more complex, and many asylum seekers are hardly able to understand their rights and obligations without support,” she said, adding: “It is therefore all the more incomprehensible that this successful structure is now being weakened again”. The politicians’ criticisms were echoed by numerous NGOs, including several ECRE member organisations. The head of PRO ASYL, Karl Kopp, described independent counselling as “a central rule-of-law safeguard within the asylum process” while his counterparts from Caritas Germany and the Workers’ Welfare Association (AWO) described the decision cancel funding for it as “short-sighted” and a “serious political mistake”.

Authorities in Poland are set to start building a new fence along part of the country’s border with Belarus. Work on the four-metre-high mesh fence topped with coils of barbed wire will be undertaken by military engineers and is expected to start “in the coming days” following months of delays due to bad weather. According to the commander of the Podlaskie province, Sławomir Klekotka, the height of the fence will be a key component of it contributing to the prevention of irregular border crossings. “It takes more time to cover those four metres. Then we have more time to reach this point,” he told the RM24 radio station. The new fence is the latest phase of a project that began with the construction of a 186-kilometre-long fence along the Poland-Belarus border in January 2022 and comes less than three months after Polish Border Guard officers reported that more than 180 people had entered Poland via a tunnel close to the village of Narewka (Podlaskie province).

The Swiss government has rejected a proposal to place a cap on the size of the country’s population. On 16 March, the Federal Council urged the electorate to reject the proposal, which had been supported by the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), when it is put to a referendum on 14 June. If adopted, the proposal would entail the imposition of a cap if the population (currently just over nine million) was to exceed 10 million before 2050 and the abandonment of international agreements involving freedom of movement. Announcing its decision, the Federal Council argued that the initiative “endangers Switzerland’s prosperity, internal security and humanitarian tradition” and “calls into question the proven bilateral path with the EU and creates additional uncertainty in an already uncertain time”. The proposal has already been rejected by both houses of the Swiss parliament.

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