HRW letter to Prime Minister Donald Tusk

Dear Prime Minister Tusk,

Ahead of Poland’s forthcoming Presidency of the Council of the EU, we write to call on your government to use this six-month period to translate its commitment to protect fundamental rights and the rule of law into concrete and bold actions at the EU level. Poland’s Presidency comes at a crucial juncture for human rights in the EU’s foreign and domestic policy. Human rights and democratic values, on which the EU is founded, are under threat in many regions of the world, including in some EU member states, while transactional policy and short-term diplomatic goals are displacing principled rights-promoting engagement.

Your presidency will see the start of accession talks with Ukraine in the context of an increasingly challenging war front and the need to advance international accountability for continuing grave crimes by Russia. Your Presidency can also play an important role in ensuring that serious crimes committed in Israel and Palestine are met with the same resolute response by the EU, addressing growing accusations of double standards. You will also chair the Council at a decisive moment for the implementation of the reformed EU asylum and migration policy, and have a crucial responsibility to demonstrate Poland’s commitment to protecting the rule of law at home, as well as at the EU level.

We call upon you and your government to consider the following priority issues and recommendations and hope they will be reflected in your presidency program:

1. Fundamental Rights and Rule of Law in EU member states

Protect the rule of law: Hungary’s government has persistently undermined democratic institutions in the country in ways that violate human rights and threaten EU values. Courts are captured. Media pluralism is declining. Civil society is under threat. The new Defense of Sovereignty law – subject of an ongoing infringement procedure by the European Commission – is used to harass civil society and independent media. The Hungarian government has ruled by emergency decree for the past four years. While infringement and financial conditionality procedures remain important, the article 7.1 TEU procedure, launched six years ago on Hungary, is the only tool to address holistically the systemic attacks against EU treaty values and political action on it continues to rest in the hands of the Council.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Work to build a sufficient majority to hold a four-fifths vote in 2025 to determine the existence of a clear risk of a breach of EU treaty values in Hungary.
• Speak out in support of civil society and independent media in Hungary and urge the European Commission to accelerate legal proceedings and seek the suspension of the country’s repressive Defense of Sovereignty law.
• Refrain from supporting any decisions to release EU funds to Hungary under financial conditionality mechanisms until all reform requirements are fully and genuinely implemented.

Ensure an enabling environment for civil society: Civil society plays a crucial role in holding governments accountable and driving positive change. However, restrictions on activism and civic space are increasing across the EU, with limitations on fundamental freedoms such as freedom of assembly, expression, and association. While the 2024 EU Rule of Law annual report acknowledges the importance of civil society organizations, it fails to adequately address the issue of intimidation and interference with their work including in France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, and elsewhere as a core challenge. Furthermore, against a backdrop of shrinking civic space, authorities in some European countries appear to have disproportionately restricted freedom of expression and assembly particularly for pro-Palestine and climate protestors.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Demonstrate leadership in championing and protecting civic space across the EU by speaking out against initiatives for foreign-influence style legislation in some member states and interference in the independent work of civil society, as well as in support of the right to peaceful protest.
• Oppose EU-level initiatives that would restrict civic space such as the proposed directive on transparency of interest representation on behalf of third countries, that risks stigmatizing foreign-funded civil society groups.

Protect media freedom: Media freedom is under threat in the EU and globally. The use of SLAPPs – Strategic Lawsuits against Public  Participation – is a particular threat in the EU, as the Union has recognized. The Polish Presidency’s leadership on this issue is vital. A free and independent media is the cornerstone of a healthy democracy, enabling the free flow of information, accountability for those in power, and a platform for diverse voices.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Champion stronger protections for media freedom and pluralism across all EU member states, including robust measures to counter the threat of SLAPPs, by prioritizing the transposition and implementation of the anti-SLAPP directive and in line with the European Commission April 2022 Recommendation on protecting journalists and human rights defenders who engage in public participation from manifestly unfounded or abusive court proceedings.
• Prioritize the full and effective implementation of the European Media Freedom Act (EMFA) to safeguard media independence and protect journalists from legal harassment.

Combat discrimination and intolerance: European governments, the Fundamental Rights Agency, the European Parliament and the Council of Europe expressed great concern during 2024 about the rise of racial discrimination, antisemitism, xenophobia, and related intolerance across Europe. In 2020, the European Commission adopted the EU’s first Action Plan Against Racism for 2020-2025, providing a roadmap for responses to structural racism within Europe. According to the Commission’s implementation report in September 2024 only 11 EU member states adopted dedicated national action plans against racism and challenges remain even in those states due to insufficient funds for implementation and a continued failure to collect data disaggregated by racial and ethnic origin to inform anti-racism policies. Poland has yet to adopt  its own national plan against racism. The lack of strategy is a major impediment to effective action needed to tackle systematic discrimination against racialized communities across the EU.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Support the adoption of the European Commission’s announced EU anti-racism strategy post-2025.
• Lead by example by moving to put in place a dedicated national action plan against racism for Poland and press other member states to do so as well.

Strengthen social protection systems: The EU is still some way away from meeting its poverty reduction target. The need for greater attention to social and economic rights and stronger social protection systems, laid bare by the Covid-19 pandemic, is made all the more urgent by inflationary pressures affecting people’s living standards across the Union. The Council should build on established momentum, including progress on the EU Child Guarantee and a series of declarations committing to realize social rights under the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Social Charter in collaboration with relevant Council of Europe bodies.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Ensure timely progress on the European Child Guarantee to combat child poverty, including by improving children’s nutrition at school, access to free education, healthcare and housing, and continue work towards a Council Recommendation on adequate minimum income, as proposed by the Commission in 2022.
• Take concrete steps to build on the Council’s declaration in Porto in 2021 and the 2024 la Hulpe  declaration, and the EU’s work together with the Council of Europe, as set out in the 2023 Reykjavik and 2024 Vilnius declarations, in particular towards greater integration into EU law of the rights protected by the European Social Charter.

2. Rights-Respecting and Principled EU Migration Policy

Promote a rights-respecting migration policy: The new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum reaffirms the fundamental right to seek asylum in the EU while introducing concepts and measures that risk undermining this right. These risks include widespread detention at borders, lowered asylum standards, and potential misuse of ‘crisis’ or ‘instrumentalization’ measures to weaken rights protections. Poland should champion implementation in a way that avoids those risks and upholds human rights and refugee law. It should also promote effective monitoring and accountability for rights violations and pushbacks at European borders, including by expanding the scope and independence of the monitoring mechanisms foreseen in the Pact and strengthening accountability for violations and sanctions for non-compliance.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Pursue domestically and support at the EU-level a rights-respecting implementation of the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum to ensure the right to seek asylum, as guaranteed by EU law, and fair and efficient processes.
• Demonstrate leadership in establishing practical rights-respecting measures at Poland’s own border with Belarus, with appropriate support from EU agencies, that ensure access to asylum procedures and humane treatment for people on the move, and effective safeguards including access for humanitarian aid workers and independent observers to border areas.

Ensure that collaboration with third countries on migration respects the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees: All EU member states are obliged to ensure the right to asylum under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Neither the Charter nor the recently adopted EU Pact on Migration and Asylum provides any option for countries to transfer asylum seekers for processing to countries outside of the EU. The EU’s strategy of containment to prevent the arrival of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants further relies on partnership agreements with third countries that pay little to no attention to their human rights records.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Uphold EU and international law obligations on access to territorial asylum in the EU and reject proposals to offshore and externalize asylum processing as unlawful.
• Oppose proposals for any revisions or watering down of the criteria for safety under the ‘safe third country’ concept in the Asylum Procedures Regulation in respect of the principle of non-refoulement.
• Insist that no migration cooperation funding reaches entities involved in migrant rights violations in third countries, press for human rights impact assessments in advance of collaboration with third countries, as well as independent human rights monitoring that could inform the suspension of funding when human rights are violated.
• Ensure that migration partnerships never lead the EU to overlooking violations of other fundamental rights in the countries involved.

3. Human Rights as a Pillar of EU’s Foreign Policy

Reinvigorate efforts towards accountability for serious crimes committed in Ukraine: Russia continues for a third year its large-scale attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, hospitals, and other civilian infrastructure, killing and injuring civilians. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine concluded that Russian authorities “committed torture against Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war as a crime against humanity.” Yet international actors that earlier gave unprecedented attention to the need for accountability for war crimes committed by Russia in Ukraine have not consistently maintained this pressure. Allowing the initiative for justice to fade risks failing the Ukrainian victims and exacerbating the distrust of the international justice system.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Press EU institutions and relevant member states to advance investigations, including under the principle of universal jurisdiction, into serious crimes committed in Ukraine, and to support civil society organizations’ efforts to represent victims in cases pursued through national courts.
• Ensure that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has adequate resources to address all cases under its purview. Advocate and support the implementation of ICC arrest warrants, including the arrest warrant issued in March 2023 for Russian president Vladimir Putin, and press EU member states to comply with EU guidelines on avoiding non-essential contacts with ICC fugitives.
• Urge Ukraine to withdraw the declaration under article 124 that it made when it ratified the Rome Statute of the ICC, which limits the jurisdiction of the ICC.
• Encourage Ukraine to ensure the measures to align its national legislation fully with the Rome Statute and international law are undertaken transparently and in close consultation with civil society organizations.

Address serious violations and press for accountability for crimes committed in Israel and Palestine: The EU faces growing accusations of double standards for failing to condemn and address serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israeli authorities in Gaza, while having rightly denounced and taken action against the Hamas-led atrocity crimes on October 7 and called for the release of Israeli hostages. In a November report, Human Rights Watch concluded that Israeli  authorities have caused massive, deliberate forced displacement of Palestinian civilians in Gaza since October 2023, are responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity and have committed actions that amount to ethnic cleansing.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Commit to address and promote accountability for serious violations committed in Israel and Palestine, including by publicly condemning Israeli authorities’ war crimes and other violations in Gaza and in the West Bank, committed both before and since October 7.
• Support proceedings of international justice mechanisms, press Israel to abide by the interim rulings of the International Court of Justice and take measures to ensure the EU acts in conformity with the ICJ advisory opinion including by banning all trade with unlawful Israeli settlements, and execute ICC arrest warrants against Israeli officials and Hamas leaders.
• Support long-overdue measures, such as targeted sanctions including on Israeli officials, the suspension of arms transfers, and a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement with a view to possibly suspend it in whole or in part.
• Recalibrate the EU’s involvement with China to mainstream human rights in all aspects of EU-China relations, resisting initiatives that marginalize human rights such as the EU-China human rights dialogue; develop a menu of concrete tools in response to China’s human rights abuses; reject China’s efforts to undermine international institutions and subvert them by introducing its own norms.
• Support the creation of a UN investigative mechanism for crimes committed in Xinjiang and work with allies towards a more comprehensive China-focused one at the Human Rights Council as previously recommended by 50 UN experts; sanction and hold accountable those responsible; and reduce economic dependency on a government that assaults rights at home and abroad.

Evaluate and address the cost of human rights violations in China: Since Xi Jinping came to power in 2013, the Chinese government has intensified its crackdown, harassing and imprisoning human rights defenders and activists including the Swedish bookseller Gui Minhai and the Uyghur economist and Sakharov Prize laureate Ilham Tohti. A report from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in August 2022 stated egregious violations against Uyghur and other Turkic communities in Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity. Beijing has also intensified its repression in Tibet and Hong Kong.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Recalibrate the EU’s involvement with China to mainstream human rights in all aspects of EU-China relations, resisting initiatives that marginalize human rights such as the EU-China human rights dialogue; develop a menu of concrete tools in response to China’s human rights abuses; reject China’s efforts to undermine international institutions and subvert them by introducing its own norms.
• Support the creation of a UN investigative mechanism for crimes committed in Xinjiang and work with allies towards a more comprehensive China-focused one at the Human Rights Council as previously recommended by 50 UN experts; sanction and hold accountable those responsible; and reduce economic dependency on a government that assaults rights at home and abroad.

Support civil society and Human Rights Defenders (HRDs) at risk: The increased persecution of independent civil society in Russia and Belarus, especially since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, has made the work of HRDs and activists in these countries extremely difficult. Rising authoritarianism in Türkiye, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Central Asian states has to varying degrees resulted in human rights organizations and independent media outlets being forced into or threatened with closure or being banned, defenders and peaceful activists imprisoned or harassed, and crackdowns on peaceful protest. Georgia’s deepening human rights crisis following the government’s pivot away from the EU and democratic reform is a case in point requiring a firm EU response in support of civil society and accountability for human rights abuses. Many authoritarian governments seek to control and silence their citizens living abroad through what is known as transnational repression (TNR). Bilateral relations and deals with third countries, including India, Egypt, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and others, should never be a reason to ignore appalling human rights records by these governments.

We call on you during your presidency of the EU Council to:

• Advocate for facilitated access for HRDs, activists and journalists to the Schengen area and more effective and coordinated humanitarian visa policy among EU member states.
• Work with EU member states to develop coordinated responses to countering transnational repression,  such as via better coordination among EU institutions, mapping of trends and responsibilities for acts of transnational repression and ensuring that extradition and similar requests are not furthering an unlawful action by the requesting government. EU member states should decline to comply with Interpol Red Notices that are put forward by rights-abusing governments or establish a second layer of vetting to Interpol’s internal vetting process for Notices.
• Ensure that human rights concerns in third countries are raised both privately and publicly during your presidency, condition EU partnerships with highly abusive governments, including key regional and global actors, tie concrete benchmarks and progress in the area of human rights and boost EU’s commitment to support civil society and human rights defenders and speak up when they are under threat.

Mobilize stronger EU responses to conflicts and humanitarian crises: While the world’s attention is largely focused on Ukraine and the Middle East, violent conflicts are also raging elsewhere, including in Sudan, Myanmar, and Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, with little regard for humanitarian principles, the laws of war and the suffering inflicted on civilians. Syria will remain extremely fragile in the wake of the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, and the EU’s engagement will be instrumental to ensure human rights are at the centre of the political transition in the country.

• Strengthen the EU’s role in responses to crises and conflicts, including in Sudan,  Myanmar,Haiti and Syria, ensuring that a renewed approach on the Sahel reflects a strong focus on protection of civilians, human rights and justice.

Support swift transposition and enforcement of the EU’s new corporate sustainability legislation: Robust and mandatory human rights and environmental laws are needed to compel companies to prevent and address human rights abuses in their supply chains. The recent adoption of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive and the EU Forced Labour Regulation provide renewed opportunities in this regard, provided these laws are ambitiously transposed into national legislation and enforced by EU member states and institutions.

• Push for an ambitious transposition and implementation of the corporate accountability laws adopted in 2024 and further support the move towards resilient and sustainable business that protects people and the planet.

Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Sincerely,

Hugh Williamson

Director, Europe & Central Asia

Human Rights Watch