Poland

Human Rights Watch claims that Polish authorities have been “unlawfully, and sometimes violently, forcing people trying to enter the country back to Belarus”.

Schengen Agreement: Many EU countries have recently reintroduced ‘temporary controls’ at their borders, leading to questions as to whether a core fundamental of the European Union is collapsing.

We spoke to former Polish foreign minister Radek Sikorski and began by asking him if he was surprised by this sudden U-turn from the Polish Prime Minister?

Staunch allies Ukraine and Poland seem to have found themselves at odds. The point of contention – Ukrainian grain.

Germany’s foreign minister says she wouldn’t ‘stand in the way’ of Poland sending Ukraine advanced German-made tanks, which the Ukrainians believe will give them the upper hand against Russia on the battlefield. Berlin must give the green light for other countries to export the Leopard 2, something it had been unwilling to do until now…

The unimaginable number of people who’ve been uprooted from their homes in Ukraine dwarfs any refugee crisis Europe has seen in most of our lifetimes. 

More than 150,000 people in the UK have expressed an interest in offering homes to people who have fled Ukraine – but critics say the government’s scheme will be unworkable unless it scraps a lot of the excessive red tape. 

“Big cities in Poland are overcrowded and we will soon no longer be able to accommodate them”, is the warning from the mayors of the country’s two largest cities about the pressure being put on them by the numbers of refugees arriving.

Thousands of people are already fleeing their homes, taking to their cars, packing onto trains and even walking on foot, carrying their possessions with them as the UN warned that the war could force as many as four million people to seek refuge abroad.

Polish riot police have fired water cannons and tear gas at people trying to break through into EU territory, after dozens of people were seen throwing rocks and rushing at a fence near the Kuznica border crossing. 

The European Union has announced there will be further sanctions on Belarus for the migration crisis it has created on its borders with the Eastern edge of the bloc.

Up to 50 migrants have been arrested in Poland as they tried to cross the border from Belarus, according to police, who said they feared that much larger crowds of people were preparing to break through.

As we approach COP26, the news gets bleaker; greenhouse gas emissions hit a record high last year according to a UN report.

We spoke to the former Polish Foreign minister Radek Sikorski – who’s now an MEP.

Activists in Poland say the LGBT community is under attack as nearly a third of the country is now referred to as a gay-free zone – areas where gay rights will no longer be promoted.