Page 52 - bnemagazine bne_December 2021_20211203.pdf

52 I Eastern Europe bne December 2021
Polish soldiers at the border fence with Belarus.
EU slaps Belarus with new sanctions for stoking migration crisis at Poland’s border
Wojciech Kosc in Warsaw
EU foreign ministers agreed on November 15 that they would step up sanctions targeting Belarus for its role in the ongoing migration crisis on the border with Poland and Lithuania.
Minister are expected to approve sanctions for airlines, travel agencies and officials linked to migrant trafficking to Belarus, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on the eve of the meeting. A list of people and entities to be hit by asset freezes and travel bans is expected to be finalised in the coming weeks. It will include “people, airlines, travel agencies and everyone involved in this illegal push of migrants against our borders,” Borrell said, The Guardian reported.
www.bne.eu
Poland has seen a surge in attempts at crossing its border from Belarus as the authorities in Minsk allow migrants to fly in from the Middle East and travel to the Polish border. Warsaw says that the operation by Belarus is “hybrid
imposed on Belarus after its autocratic leader Alexander Lukashenka rigged the presidential election last year. Orchestrating a migration crisis is widely seen as Lukashenka’s retaliation for the sanctions.
“Orchestrating a migration crisis is widely seen as Lukashenka’s retaliation for the sanctions”
war” overseen by Russia with the aim of sowing chaos in Poland and the EU using the politically divisive issue of migration.
The new sanctions add to the sanction regime already in place that the EU
“The Council [of foreign ministers] today amended its sanctions regime in view of the situation at the EU’s border with Belarus, so as to be able to respond to the instrumentalisation of human beings carried out by the Belarus regime