Lithuania Wants EU Sanctions On Belarus Over Migrant Inflow
According to RFE/RL, Lithuania says it has proposed that the European Union impose sanctions on Belarusian citizens and companies it says are helping migrants cross into the bloc.
In recent months thousands of migrants, many from Iraq and Afghanistan, have crossed from Belarus into Lithuania alone, but neighbouring EU member states such as Poland and Latvia have also seen increases in illegal crossings.
Belarusian authorities have allegedly funnelled migrants across the EU border, which Minsk has denied, in what EU officials called a "hybrid attack" on the bloc in retaliation for sanctions over authoritarian ruler Alyaksandr Lukashenka's crackdown on the country's pro-democracy movement following a disputed presidential election in August 2020.
Speaking on August 24 at a news conference in the border town of Medininkai, Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the Lithuanian government had presented the EU's External Action Service with a list of Belarusian citizens and companies "involved in illegal migrant flows."
"As soon as the institutions return from leave, it will be possible to start a debate on sanctions against these people and institutions," he said. "We need to send a very clear signal not only to Belarus, but also to any dictator who decides to use such an instrument against the European Union or any of its states that not only will it fail, but it will get back."
Landsbergis visited the border area along with Interior Minister AgneBilotaite and Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, who told the same news conference that those responsible for the migrant inflow "must face strict sanctions."
The Lithuanian government plans to complete a 508-kilometre razor-wire fence along the border with Belarus by September 2022, at a cost of up to 152 million euros ($179 million).
Poland has also announced plans to build a similar fence on the border with Belarus.
During an August 24 visit to the border guards securing Poland's border with Belarus, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki accused his country’s eastern neighbour of "trying systematically, and in an organized way, to destabilize the political situation."
