EU calls on 13 countries to stifle migrant flows to Belarus / Article

The regime of the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, is trying to destabilize the EU by encouraging migrants to travel to Belarus’ borders with Poland, Lithuania and Latvia, in an attempt to retaliate against EU sanctions imposed on his regime.

“This is part of the Lukashenko regime’s inhumane and truly gangster-style approach,” Peter Stano, a spokesman for the European Commission (EC), told reporters.

The EU has already successfully approached Iraq in an effort to suspend flights from Baghdad to Minsk.

The EU is now addressing a further 13 countries, a source of migrants that Belarus is using or could potentially use in its hybrid operation against the EU. Another 20 other countries are being monitored.

Brussels has already contacted 13 countries. These are Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Georgia, Guinea, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Turkey.

Algeria, Azerbaijan, India, Iran, Côte d’Ivoire, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Qatar, Russia, Senegal, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Venezuela and Yemen are monitored.

EC Vice-President Margaritis Shins will visit a number of migrants’ countries of origin and transit to warn them about the gambit of migration in Minsk and the risks to those who are lured into it.

The EU is following developments in Russia, which is Lukashenko’s main ally, Stano said.

The EU is also working on a fifth round of sanctions against Belarus, the EC spokesman said.

“We are trying to explore all possible means at our disposal to deal with this situation,” Stano said.

As the President of the EC Urzula von der Leiena said in a statement, the EU is examining the possibility of imposing sanctions on airlines that are “actively involved in human trafficking” transporting migrants to Belarus.

In an interview with CNN, Latvian Interior Minister Marija Golubeva (AP) said that the EU should carefully rethink its approach to migration and asylum at a time when migration has been made a weapon to undermine European democratic societies.

Representatives of the Minister’s public relations informed that the Latvian politician emphasized that the EU had received many asylum seekers, but its borders could not be open to mass migration organized by hostile countries, when it was not possible to find out which people would really deserve asylum.

The Minister reiterated that Latvia will be ready to defend Europe’s external border if a mass flow is directed towards Latvia. “This is the responsibility of both our national security and the EU member state,” the minister emphasized.

Golubeva believes that Lukashenko is blackmailing and terrorizing the EU to recognize him as president, despite the lost elections. “The situation of the victims of his hybrid operation is tragic. We need to see individuals in them, not black people. However, this does not mean that we need to open the borders so that Lukashenko can use them for his own purposes,” we said it must be made clear that we cannot process individual asylum applications at a border that is being massively violated. “

CONTEXT:

In the summer of 2021 the number of migrants increased significantly, which is trying to enter the territory of Latvia, Lithuania and Poland illegally from Belarus. Most migrants are arrived from Iraq.

Officials from the Baltic states and Poland pointed out that the Belarusian authorities deliberately do not obstruct the crossing of the borderto punish these countries for supporting the Belarusian opposition and sanctions against Alexander Lukashenko’s regime.

The European Union will do so described as the deployment of hybrid warfare and promises to help strengthen the EU’s external border.

The Latvian government from August 11 declared a state of emergency on the border with Belarus, later on extended until 10 February. Latvia also plans to speed up Latvian-Belarusian border infrastructures construction.

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