EU Commission proposes to curb some rights of migrants at Belarus border

The proposals are the latest EU attempt to deal with what it describes as a crisis manufactured by Minsk. It accuses Belarus of flying in migrants from the Middle East and pushing them to cross through the woods into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.

Belarus calls the accusations absurd. Rights groups say at least 13 people have died as thousands of migrants have camped in freezing conditions.

The three EU countries that border Belarus have defended their approach of pushing migrants back without individually assessing their cases or granting them a realistic chance to claim asylum - which rights groups say violates EU rules and international humanitarian law.

Under the proposal by the Commission, the EU's executive arm, migrants would be permitted to claim asylum only at designated locations, such as border crossings. National authorities would have a longer period of up to four weeks to register asylum applications.

Asylum seekers could be kept for up to 16 weeks at the border, losing a standing right to be held in more suitable centres inside the country.

The proposals are a further example of the EU tightening immigration rules since more than 1 million people arrived in 2015, overwhelming the bloc and dividing member states over how to respond. Poland's nationalist government has been a leading anti-immigration voice since then, and often clashes with the EU over other human rights issues as well.

Border tensions have eased in recent weeks, since outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel phoned Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and his most powerful ally Moscow, and Minsk moved migrants back from the frontier.

Lukashenko was quoted on Wednesday saying he was ready to suspend Russian energy flows over Belarusian territory if Poland closed the border. The Kremlin said it hoped he would not do so.

Poland allowed a state of emergency at the border to lapse overnight, but the interior minister made use of new powers granted to him by parliament to extend a ban on media and rights activists operating at the border for another three months.

Lithuania's government said on Wednesday it would ask parliament to declare a state of emergency on its border with Poland from December 10 as part of efforts to prevent the smuggling of migrants.

The state of emergency would include border checks focusing on "suspicious vehicles", Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said.

Poland currently provides the only checks-free route from Lithuania and Latvia to Germany, the destination for many migrants who have arrived in the region via Belarus in recent months.

Lithuanian prosecutors are pursuing 60 cases of illegal smuggling of people and new smuggler "networks" are being established, the Interior Ministry said.

"We see attempts by our own organised crime groups to work with Belarusian criminals to organise the smuggling," Bilotaite told reporters ahead of a government meeting. "We need to stop this secondary migration from gaining momentum."

The government is also to ask parliament on Friday to extend an existing state of emergency on Lithuania's border with Belarus and at camps hosting migrants who arrived from there.

The EU accuses Belarus of flying in thousands of people from the Middle East and pushing them to cross into the bloc via Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Belarus denies this.

Lithuania has built a razor wire fence along 100 km (60 miles) of its border with Belarus since the crisis started, though migrants have cut through it at least three times already, the Interior Ministry said.

In the past week, Lithuanian border guards have turned back around 50 people a day trying to enter illegally from Belarus, data showed.

"There are around 10,000 illegal migrants in Belarus. Until they are returned to their countries of origin by flights from Minsk, there is a sufficiently high risk that they could be directed towards Lithuania," the ministry said.