Polish-Belarusian border: this is how the refugee drama could end

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long been showing how to use refugees as weapons. In 2016 he agreed to take care of thousands upon thousands of Syrians fleeing the civil war in their homeland. Say to keep them away from the EU. That went well for a long time, but at some point the head of state threatened to open the borders to Greece for migrants – knowing about the dilemma in which the new migrant flows would bring the European countries. Now it is the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko who is using the lives of refugees as a political bargaining chip.

Poland does not want to be blackmailed

For weeks, refugees from Syria and Iraq have been gathering on the border between Belarus and Poland in the hope of asylum in the EU. But the Warsaw government is literally closing down. On the one hand, she has been following a strict anti-immigration policy for a long time, and on the other hand, she does not want to be blackmailed by the neighboring regime in Minsk. Consequence: At least 2,000 people remain more or less defenseless and without accommodation in the border area on the Belarusian side in icy temperatures, several people have already frozen to death. Belarusian security forces are pushing the refugees towards the barbed wire that the Poles have erected. Polish security forces, on the other hand, rudely push migrants back as soon as they enter EU territory – even if these “push-backs” are illegal.

So how should this knot of hardship, politics and cynicism be broken?

The role of Belarus

“We condemn the orchestrated instrumentalization of people whose lives and well-being have been endangered by Belarus for political ends, with the aim of destabilizing neighboring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention from its own growing human rights violations,” it said a declaration by some states in the UN Security Council. Poland and the EU also accuse Lukashenko of targeting people from crisis regions in order to smuggle them into the EU.

New research by the “Spiegel” confirms the thesis. The magazine reports that the number of flights from the Middle East to Minsk has risen to 40. An airport employee speaks in “Spiegel” of “400 new arrivals every day” from the region. There are currently 15,000 people from Syria and Iraq in the Belarusian capital. Buses then drive the needy people to the border with Poland, where they have to remain squeezed in a kind of no man’s land.

The responsible staff of the federal government call the situation a “hybrid threat”, the reason they suspect a campaign of revenge by Lukashenko for the sanctions of the West. After the fraudulent 2020 elections, the European Union issued a series of punitive measures against representatives of the regime. In addition, the European airspace is closed to Belarusian aircraft, as is the capital market for investors from the autocratically ruled country.

One and probably the quickest and easiest solution to the conflict is for the ruler Alexander Lukashenko to stop smuggling defenseless refugees from the Middle East.

The role of the EU

Fences made of NATO wire, more police officers at the external borders, money for countries of transit and countries of origin: European refugee policy is reminiscent of messing around instead of well thought-out concepts. There is no organized distribution of refugees in the member states, nor are there any uniform admission criteria. Poland, for example, on the border of which the humanitarian drama is taking place, has no interest in looking after the people, nor is it obliged to do so. The EU’s influence on the country is very limited in this regard, and the relationship between the government in Warsaw and that in Brussels is currently very tense.

In order to get things moving on the Polish border, the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has announced further sanctions against Belarus. Airlines, too, might have to expect penalties. “All airlines need to know who is guilty of complicity in criminal smuggling, who will have to face consequences, including sanctions for overflight rights or landing permits,” said Maas. The announcement is beginning to have an effect: Turkey was the first country to ban nationals from Syria, Iraq and Yemen from flights from Turkish airports to Belarus. Belavia, the main Belarusian airline, has announced that it will abide by the arrangement.

In addition to such threatening gestures, the Vice President of the EU Commission, Margaritis Schinas, is in the process of negotiating directly with states in the Middle East. After his trip to Lebanon, he said there was “progress on all fronts”. Visits to other countries are due next week. Europe is currently counting “in a way its friends and we are very happy that we have many,” he said.

The EU faces a dilemma in the conflict. It is true that individual countries such as Germany could agree to take in the needy people, but that would mean playing Lukashenko’s cynical game. But ignoring thousands of migrants at their borders in the freezing cold is no solution either. Presumably the EU countries will open their caskets again and buy support from the Middle East countries.

The role of Russia

The autocratic regime in Belarus is largely dependent on Russia’s goodwill. And its president, Vladimir Putin, uses every opportunity that presents itself to crush the West. He should be watching the refugee conflict on the border with Poland with great pleasure. It is hardly a coincidence that both states have announced joint military exercises near the Polish border. The Ministry of Defense in Minsk justified the move with the “increase in military activity” near the Belarusian border.

However, the Kremlin has distanced itself from Lukashenko’s threat to stop gas supplies to Europe in the event of new EU sanctions. Russia “is and will remain a country that is meeting all of its obligations to supply gas to European consumers,” the Kremlin said. The Yamal-Europe pipeline, which carries Russian gas to Europe, also runs through Belarusian territory.

Angela Merkel, who is still Chancellor, has telephoned the Russian President several times on the matter. Most recently, she asked for Moscow to intervene in the conflict. Now Putin declared himself ready to do so, but pleaded for the restoration of contacts between the EU and Belarus. Because the EU no longer recognizes rulers Lukashenko as head of state after the presidential election last year, which was considered to be falsified.

Presumably, Vladimir Putin could resolve the matter by calling his ally Lukashenko. But the phone call wouldn’t be for free. He is likely to demand that the EU recognize the Belarusian ruler as the legitimate president, and Moscow is also demanding, among other things, that the West be accommodating in the conflict in Eastern Ukraine.

Sources: DPA, AFP, “mirrors“,”Daily mirror“