Europol will deploy its staff to control and supervise work on the Polish border
From political to economic warfare. From the blow to that great weakness of the EU, the absence of a common migration strategy, to the threat of shaking another of its weakest flanks: dependence on gas. Alexander Lukashenko’s hint that he could cut off the supply of this essential resource to neighboring countries if the bloc tightens its sanctions against the regime sounds, at the moment, bravado in Brussels. “We are not going to be intimidated,” said the spokeswoman for the European Commission, Dana Spinant, while the new attempt to coerce Minsk was still hot.
Just a few minutes before, the Economic Manager of the Community Executive, Paolo Gentiloni, had made it clear using exactly the same phrase. Two consecutive press conferences on the same stage, the same strong message and some more clarification that did not change the background of the European position. The EU Foreign spokesperson, Nabila Massrali, for example, called for “not using this fundamental resource in geopolitical struggles, just as human beings should not be used as weapons in geopolitical struggles.”
The point is that Brussels, which has also immersed itself fully in the debate on the financing of walls and barbed wire, continues with its road map and plans to specify new sanctions against the regime of the former Soviet republic in the Council of Ministers for Affairs Exteriors to be held next week. A priori it is perceived as unlikely that Lukashenko will close the tap of the Yamal-Europe gas pipeline, which transports fuel from Russia through Belarus.
The infrastructure is owned by the giant Gazprom and, consequently, a closing maneuver of this magnitude would have to have the final authorization of the Kremlin, which would expose it even more to the accusations of Warsaw of being covering this “hybrid attack” that It has led to hundreds of migrants being trapped at the Polish border. And that has led Warsaw to make a formal request for the deployment of Europol, which Brussels has been asking for weeks. The step is taken just when accusations of alleged hot returns rage on his government or criticism is redoubled for the veto on the entry of NGOs and the tight control of the news by not allowing access to journalists. At the moment, neither the number of people from the Europol Migrant Trafficking Center who will attend nor when they will begin to carry out the supervision and support work is not specified.
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