Dispute with Belarus: Meuse for sanctions for people smugglers

Foreign Minister Maas has threatened Belarus with further sanctions in the refugee dispute. Anyone involved in the smuggling of migrants would be sanctioned. The European Union is not open to blackmail.

Thousands of migrants spent another night in the cold in Belarus on the border with Poland. The state media in Minsk distributed film footage of desperate people who wait in tent camps and around campfires and hope to cross the EU border. Politicians from the authoritarian ruled ex-Soviet republic and helpers brought the migrants, as could be seen on state television, bread, pickled vegetables and water.

The Council of the Republic – the House of Lords in the People’s Assembly – issued a statement calling it a “humanitarian catastrophe”. The West preached moral standards all over the world, but did not implement them in the crisis over migrants, it said in the letter published in Minsk.

Several migrants break through the border

The criticism was directed primarily against neighboring Poland. The EU member has stationed thousands of soldiers at the border to prevent the barbed wire from breaking through. In places, migrants had already torn down the fences. According to a Polish media report, two large groups of migrants managed to break through the border on Wednesday night.

Several dozen migrants managed to destroy fences near the villages of Krynki and Białowieża and to cross the border, reported the Polish news agency PAP, citing the local broadcaster Białystok. The station quoted a spokeswoman for the border guard that in both cases fences and barriers had been forcibly torn down. Some of the migrants have been returned to Belarus, while others have been released.

Many of the migrants apparently want to travel on to Germany

The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko called on Tuesday to let people through. They didn’t want to settle in Poland, but mainly in Germany, he said in an interview. The EU sees Lukashenko as responsible for the worsening situation in the border region.

The politician, decried as the “last dictator of Europe”, has a reputation for allowing people from crisis countries such as Syria, Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq to be flown in in order to smuggle them towards the EU border. Lukashenko had denied the allegations and held international smuggling networks responsible for organizing people’s trips.

He again admitted that he would no longer stop migrants on their way to the EU. “Do I have too much money, or what?”, He said in the interview, referring to the costs of deploying border guards. Therefore all people would now be allowed through. Machines with migrants on board were again expected at the airport in Minsk this Wednesday.

Lukashenko reacted to sanctions from the West with his actions. The EU had imposed the punitive measures against the power apparatus in Minsk for, among other things, human rights violations and the suppression of dissenters.

Maas for sanctions against people involved in smuggling

The Acting Foreign Minister Heiko Maas meanwhile spoke out in favor of sanctions against anyone involved in the smuggling of refugees to Belarus. “Nobody should be allowed to take part in Lukashenko’s inhumane activities with impunity,” declared the SPD politician. This applies to countries of origin and transit, but also to airlines that enable people to be transported to Belarus. The European Union is ready to “draw clear conclusions here”.

The SPD politician also spoke out in favor of further direct EU sanctions against Belarus. “Lukashenko has to recognize that his calculations are not working. Incidentally, that does not rule out extending the sanctions to other areas of the economy in the future.” Some economic sectors such as the potash industry and energy industry are already subject to punitive measures.

Expansion of the sanctions is to be initiated

According to diplomats, the permanent representatives of the governments of the EU countries want to initiate an expansion of sanctions today. They could be decided at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday. The EU has not recognized Lukashenko as president since the controversial presidential election last year.

Meanwhile, the left’s external expert Gregor Gysi warned of a military escalation. “A military solution should not be thought of for a second, because it meant that Russia felt itself surrounded by NATO more and more and for this reason intervened directly or indirectly. Then we have a world warlike conflict that neither side can afford.” , said Gysi to the editorial network Germany. You definitely need a different relationship with Russia, Belarus’ strongest ally, in order to change the situation.

The Central Council of Yazidis in Germany called for the refugees to be accepted into the EU. “The situation of the people is explosive, the nights are dangerously cold, there is a lack of food and medicine. The EU must not seal itself off now,” said Irfan Ortac, deputy chairman of the Central Council of Yazidis in Germany, the newspapers of the Funke media group. According to the Central Council, several hundred Yazidis are currently holding out at the border.