Lithuania has received almost 30 million euros from the European Commission (EC) to deal with the influx of migrants on the border with Belarus, the Lithuanian government has announced.
This funding is intended to cover the costs of accommodation and basic needs of migrants who have entered Lithuania illegally from Belarus, the Lithuanian Ministry of the Interior said. Another € 37 million is planned for later.
This money is also intended to pay for servants and guards in migrant camps.
The EC has refused to finance the fence on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border. Following this refusal, the interior ministers of 12 European Union (EU) member states on Friday asked the EC to fund fences at the borders to stop illegal immigrants from entering EU territory.
As part of an expanded hybrid attack on the regime of Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, efforts have been made in recent months to send thousands of illegal immigrants to Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, most of them arriving in Belarus as tourists from Iraq.
Lukashenko said at the end of May that Belarus would no longer hinder the entry of migrants into the EU through its territory, in response to the strengthening of Western sanctions against Belarus.
In the following months, almost 4,200 people crossed the Lithuanian border illegally from Belarus. Lithuania responded by stepping up border guards and building hundreds of kilometers of fences.
Brussels has so far refrained from funding EU Member States’ fences at borders, insisting that the current legal framework only allows EU budget funds to be used for “border management systems”.
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