Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko for the first time about the refugee crisis at the EU’s external border. This was announced by government spokesman Steffen Seibert in Berlin. The phone call was about “the difficult situation on the border between Belarus and the European Union”.
According to a report on Belarusian State Television, the conversation lasted about 50 minutes. It was discussed, for example, how an escalation of the situation at the border could be prevented. It was also about humanitarian support for the migrants stuck in the border area. According to Seibert, Merkel and Lukashenko have agreed further talks. The EU accuses Lukashenko of bringing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner. It is suspected that he wants to avenge himself for the EU sanctions.
It was the first time since the controversial presidential election in Belarus last August that Merkel had spoken to Lukashenko. The EU no longer recognizes him as President because of the crackdown on peaceful demonstrators by the security forces. Sanctions were imposed on the country.
French President Emmanuel Macron and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin also spoke on the phone. They agreed on the need to de-escalate the migrant crisis, said a French government official after the two-hour conversation. “The aim of this call was to put an end to the crisis.” However, there is still no agreement on the origin of the conflict. The EU accuses Lukashenko of smuggling migrants into his country and then on to the EU’s external border with Poland in response to existing sanctions.
At the weekend, Putin expressed the expectation that Merkel would start talks with Lukashenko. There are also high expectations of Germany among migrants.
EU brings new sanctions on the way
The foreign ministers of the EU states decided on Monday a new sanction instrument against those involved in the smuggling of migrants to Belarus. The EU will now be able to target people and institutions who have contributed to enabling the Belarusian regime to instrumentalise people for political purposes, the Council of Member States announced.
Poland intends to start building a permanent fortification on its border with Belarus this year, Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski wrote on Twitter. Poland has already put up a temporary fence along the border. This is a barbed wire fence around 2.50 meters high. This is now to be replaced by a permanent barrier 5.5 meters high, which is equipped with motion detectors and cameras.
According to the Polish police, a group of several hundred migrants tried in vain to overcome the border fortifications on Monday evening. Police officers, border guards and soldiers were pelted with stones in the incident near the village of Starzyna, a spokesman said. In contrast, the situation at the Kuznica border crossing, where, according to Polish information, 3,500 migrants had gathered on the Belarusian side during the day, was initially calm in the evening.