Poland and Lithuania call on the EU to provide assistance in Belarusian immigration dispute

According to Polish authorities, 133 people were intercepted at the Belarusian-Polish border in the past two days, compared with 122 in the entire year of last year.

As tensions between EU countries and Minsk continue to intensify, Poland and Lithuania are calling on European institutions to help them deal with the surge in immigration from Belarus.

The Belarusian Border Protection Agency said on Friday that it has strengthened controls on the Lithuanian border to prevent Lithuanian authorities from sending migrants back to Belarus.

On Thursday, Poland accused Belarus of sending more and more migrants to the border in retaliation for Warsaw’s decision this week to provide asylum to Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya. Refuse to go home From the Tokyo Olympics.

Polish Prime Minister Mateus Morawiecki and Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrid Simeonet said in a joint statement: “We condemn the Lukashenko regime’s weaponization of irregular immigration for the purpose of harming the European Union. And individual member states to exert political pressure.”

When people stood in a camp near the Lithuanian border town of Kapucha Mistis, they saw them through the fence [File: Petras Malukas/AFP]

A spokesman for the Polish Border Guard said that in the past two days alone, 133 people were intercepted at the Belarusian-Poland border, compared with 122 in the whole year of last year.

In recent weeks, Lithuania has also reported a surge in the number of people crossing the border from Belarus, and that Minsk is flying in from abroad and sending them to the European Union.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko accused Lithuania and Poland of contributing to border immigration issues on Thursday.

In the statement, Poland and Lithuania called on the European Commission, Frontex, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), other EU member states and partners outside the EU to provide political and practical support, and called for strengthening the EU’s immigration and asylum policies.

The statement said: “We firmly believe that protecting the external Schengen border is not only the obligation of individual member states, but also the common responsibility of the European Union.”

EU convenes a meeting

The EU Interior Minister and representatives of the EU border agency Frontex and Europol will discuss this issue next week.

Slovenia, which holds the rotating EU presidency, stated that the talks will be conducted through a video conference on August 18 under the crisis response mechanism.

Interior ministers from 27 member states and representatives of Frontex border agencies, EASO and Europol were invited.

The spokesperson of the rotating EU presidency of Slovenia said: “Due to the situation on the border between Lithuania and Belarus, the EU faces serious security threats and is a testament to the weaponization of illegal Belarusian immigration supported by the state.”