Europe is redoubling the pressure against Belarus due to its strategy of destabilizing Poland and other border community countries by promoting migratory flows towards the community club. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has traveled urgently to Warsaw this Wednesday to “express all the solidarity of the EU” with Poland in the face of the aggression of the Lukashenko regime, which in recent hours has resulted in the retention than 60 people who managed to cross the border into Polish territory. Michel did not hesitate to describe the arrival of migrants to the Polish border orchestrated by Belarus at a press conference as a “hybrid attack, brutal attack, sudden attack”. The president of the European Council has affirmed in the Polish capital that the 27 are already preparing new sanctions against the Lukashenko regime that will be approved quickly, probably next Monday. And he has warned that the punishment could also extend to the countries of origin and transit of migrants who refuse to cooperate with Brussels to cut off the flow deliberately created by Lukashenko. The EU already managed in the summer to convince the Iraqi government to stop flights from Baghdad bound for Belarus. But the European Commission recognizes that Lukashenko has managed to open other routes and is bringing in migrants from more than twenty countries.
Warsaw asks Brussels for stronger measures. The Polish Prime Minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has taken advantage of Michel’s visit to demand “the convening of a European Council by videoconference to study economic reprisals against Belarus.” Morawiecki assures that “the European sanctions in force against the Lukashenko regime are not working.” Poland is in favor of a much harsher punishment that hits the weak economic foundations of Belarus. Warsaw also plans to close the border crossings with Minsk that could be used to redouble the hybrid attack, a bolt that would have serious consequences for commercial traffic between the two countries.
The tension on the border between Poland and Belarus has once again experienced an episode of tension between Tuesday night and the early hours of this Wednesday. Hundreds of migrants stranded a few meters from the fence that separates the two countries have tried on several occasions to enter Polish territory after breaking the fence, according to the Border Guard, which reported this morning that expulsion orders have been processed against 48 migrants who managed to cross and 12 people have been detained. The Polish Defense Minister, Mariusz Błaszczak, has explained that his government, which accuses the Aleksander Lukashenko regime of transferring citizens of countries in crisis such as Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria to the border with Poland to destabilize the EU, has sent already 15,000 soldiers to the area to try to contain the migratory pressure.
“It was not a quiet night. In fact, there were many attempts to cross the Polish border, “Błaszczak told PR1 broadcaster. In addition to the 15,000 Army soldiers, Colonel Marek Pietrzak, spokesman for the Polish Territorial Defense Forces – a paramilitary body of reservists and volunteers – assured Tuesday that 8,000 members of this unit have been mobilized and that 1,000 of them will arrive. to the border imminently.
The EU imposed sanctions on Belarus after Lukashenko’s alleged electoral uproar in August 2020 and extended them in June this year following the hijacking of a European commercial flight, forced to land in Minsk to arrest a Belarusian dissident traveling as a passenger. In total, there are 166 high-ranking officials of the regime, including the president, on a black list that prevents them from entering European territory and condemns them to confiscate property they possess in an EU country. The EU has also banned Belarusian airlines from operating on EU territory and European companies have stopped flying over Belarusian airspace.
Belarus, for its part, accused Poland on Wednesday of having attacked four migrants at the border. “In view of the numerous injuries on the bodies of the migrants, the Polish forces of order brutally treated them and pushed them to the fence with barbed wire,” said the country’s border guard. The head of Belarusian diplomacy, Vladimir Makei, has traveled to Moscow and in a meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, has called for a “joint reaction” from the two countries. According to Makei, it is the EU that orchestrates the current migration crisis on the Polish border to impose new sanctions against Minsk despite the fact that it has been Belarus that has transferred hundreds of migrants to the area. Lavrov has asked the EU not to be dragged into a confrontation with Minsk and Moscow over the migration crisis: “I very much hope that the responsible Europeans, the great European powers, will have the will and will not be drawn into a spiral. [de confrontación] which is extremely dangerous ”.
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The meeting in Warsaw has also analyzed the possibility that the European budget finances border walls or barriers that prevent the irregular entry of migrants, a possibility so far rejected by the European Commission. Brussels has indicated this Wednesday that in the last budget period (2014-2029) it already allocated more than 1,600 million euros to finance border infrastructures (such as computer media, border management), but that it continues to be against financing the construction of Physical barriers. Michel, however, has acknowledged that the debate is open “and must be clarified as soon as possible.” The President of the Council has pointed out that countries like Lithuania have a long external border, in this case with Belarus, of more than 600 kilometers, and that the EU should study how it helps to protect it.
The vice-presidents of the Commission, Josep Borrell and Margaritis Schinas, will begin a tour in the coming days to convince the authorities of the countries of origin and transit to prevent departures that expose their own citizens to being abandoned by Lukashenko in a land of no one in the border area between Belarus and Poland, at the risk of being involved in a serious humanitarian crisis.
Other EU voices are also increasing pressure on Moscow to help curb the crisis. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has telephoned Russian President Vladimir Putin to address the issue. And the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in an interview in the US has pointed out that “Russia has enormous influence over Lukashenko and we ask that he use it to de-escalate the tension.”
In addition to Poland, other EU states such as Lithuania and Latvia – which have also experienced episodes of tension on their borders – accuse Belarus of transferring hundreds of migrants from third countries in retaliation for the sanctions imposed by the Twenty-seven due to the serious human rights violations in the country following the protests over the elections held in August 2020, the result of which has not been recognized by the EU.
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