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Von der Leyen: no funding for “barbed wire and walls”
Given the increasing number of migrants reaching Europe across the Belarusian border, the EU will not release funds to finance fences or walls. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced this on Friday. “There was indeed a discussion about what is known as physical infrastructure, and I made it very clear that there has been a longstanding common position in the Commission and the European Parliament that there will be no funding for barbed wire and walls.” Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said during the European Council in Brussels that a physical barrier was necessary to protect the EU from Belarus in the short term. Von der Leyen promised to keep up the pressure on Minsk. “We are very concerned about the situation on the borders with Belarus. We see the behavior of the Belarusian government as a hybrid attack. The people who are being used by Lukashenko are victims. We have to help them. Nobody’s life should be used for political issues It is an instrumentalization of migration in order to exert political pressure on the European Union. ” The EU is convinced that Belarus is promoting migration towards Europe in retaliation for sanctions that the EU has imposed on the country, because of the controversial re-election of Lukashenko and because of massive human rights violations.
The EU Commission President announced in Brussels. Before that, there had been a discussion in the European Council about the possibilities of preventing migrants from crossing the border between Belarus and the EU.