To control and manage migration flows, the Council of Europe member states concentrate much of their efforts on guarding frontiers. In this context, refusals of entry and expulsions without any individual assessment of protection needs have become a documented phenomenon at European borders, as well as on the territories of member states further inland. As these practices are widespread, and in some countries systematic, those “pushbacks” can be considered as a part of national policies rather than incidental actions. The highest risk attached to pushbacks is the risk of refoulement, meaning that a person is sent back to a place where she might face persecution in the sense of the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. The author analyzes PACE Resolution 2299 (2019) Pushback policies and practice in the Council of Europe member States and recommendation 2161 (2019) on this subject offered by this international organization. The author suggests that even if this document belongs to the so-called “soft law”, it has an important political meaning and PACE’s recommendations may positively affect the CoE’s member states policy toward the pushbacks.

“Soviet citizens” in Poznań region in 1945–1949

The article discusses the fate of individuals of interest of the Soviet authorities and deemed the USSR citizens. Some of them were forced labourers on their way back home from Germany and the occupied countries. A large part of them were inhabitants of Wielkopolska who used to have Russian or Soviet citizenship. The article presents treatment thereof in Wielkopolska in 1945-1949.