The EU’s new physical borders change the right to seek asylum

Over the last decade, the EU’s external borders have undergone rapid reconstruction. Around 13 per cent of them are now reinforced with fences or walls, often as a response to irregular migration or what is described as “hybrid influence”, in which states such as Russia or Belarus facilitate migration.

“Migration is increased described as a security issue. People are referred to as ‘instrumentalised’ or as ‘weapons’ in geopolitical conflicts, and this shapes the way we construct and maintain borders,” says Kristina Wejstål, a postdoctoral researcher in law at Södertörn University.

Wejstål’s fieldwork has taken her to forests, rivers and areas in which the legal map meets physical terrain. On one of her fieldtrips to Białowieża Forest, she witnessed the sudden change in the landscape as a massive pale barrier rose up between the trees – Poland’s new fence on the border with Belarus. After several hours cycling through the forest, she saw something that initially looked like pale tree trunks. But close up, it became apparent that it was a fence cutting straight through one of Europe’s last virgin forests.

“It was as if the landscape had been instantly split in two. The fence was like a white wall in the forest, completely transforming the place’s character,” she says.

At the border between the two Poland and Belarus, the fence is combined with often violent border controls and legislation that severely restricts opportunities to seek asylum. As a result, people are denied entry to Poland and find themselves caught in a vicious circle, forced to shuttle backwards and forwards between Poland and Belarus. Organisations working at the border have documented thousands of unlawful pushbacks* of people attempting to seek asylum in Poland. They are sent back to Belarus as soon as they try to apply, without their case being examined.

“A terrible limbo has arisen, in which people can neither enter Poland nor have any real prospect of protection in Belarus. They have neither rights nor protection. The people I interviewed in Poland call this a ‘ping-pong match’, in which people get stuck for weeks or months in the forest between the two countries, with no access to food, water or medical assistance,” says Wejstål.

What is happening on Finland’s border with Russia?

The number of people seeking asylum in Finland after entering the country from Russia increased in the autumn of 2023. Because the border may only be crossed by vehicle, many chose to brave the snow and cycle across, often on children’s bikes.

The Finnish government regarded these asylum seekers as part of Russia’s hybrid influence operations. In response, Finland closed all its border crossings with Russia and removed the option to apply for asylum at the border by “centralising” the asylum process. Emergency legislation was also prepared and adopted, restricting the right to seek asylum at the eastern border and allowing border guards to stop people who try to enter Finland and remove them without necessarily assessing their grounds for asylum.

This Finnish legislation later served as a model for Poland, which adopted a similar law in 2025. There are many parallels between the two countries’ approaches to dealing with the geopolitical situation. Finland has also reinforced its eastern border with a fence, a project that began in 2022 and is still ongoing.

“The people I interviewed have shown that there is a clear difference between what is happening in the border region and how the situation is portrayed politically. The threat narrative is foregrounded, while people’s stories and the huge impact these measures have on the protection of fundamental rights are pushed into the background,” she says.

After several years’ working on border issues in her thesis, Wejstål has chosen to deepen her research by investigating border landscapes, where law and space interact. Her project is funded by the Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies. Her working hours are divided between Södertörn University and the University of Gothenburg’s School of Global Studies, but she makes regular fieldtrips to the Polish-Belarussian and Finnish-Russian borders so she can follow developments.

“Being there in person allows me to see how the law interacts with border control practices, fences and the landscape. This provides a different type of understanding than you get from simply studying traditional legal sources,” she says.

What are the implications for the right to asylum?

Wejstål’s research shows how physical infrastructures and emergency legislation are making it increasingly difficult to exercise the right to asylum, even when it is formally in force. When border crossings are closed and asylum assessments are moved to places that few people can access, there is a risk that this right is undermined.

“The right to asylum has not been abolished at the EU’s eastern border, but because it is practically impossible to apply for asylum from outside the EU, national legislation, physical border barriers and border control practices have a decisive role in determining whether these rights are accessible and enforceable,” she says.

Wejstål describes a trend in which the geopolitical situation and the “instrumentalisation of migration” are being used to justify increasingly heavy-handed border controls, in which the rights established in international law and EU law are not upheld or respected.

“There is a serious risk that temporary and geographically limited regulations, such as those in Finland and Poland, will gradually become an entrenched part of the EU’s border regime. Developments on the EU’s eastern borders really matter, so monitoring them is important,” she says.