06/07/2021 (Agence Europe) – Belarus “could be playing a role in the sudden influx of migrants to Lithuania”, European Council President Charles Michel said on Tuesday 6 July during a trip to the Baltic country, adding that EU Member States were “neither naïve nor intimidated”, AFP reported. In the last 24 hours, Lithuanian border guards have arrested 131 migrants, mainly from Africa and the Near East, including Iraq. This brings the number of illegal entries of migrants detected in the country since the beginning of 2021 to 1,300, compared to only 81 for the whole of 2020. The European agency Frontex has already deployed a mission on the ground, its director, Fabrice Leggeri, said on 23 June (see EUROPE 12748/4). The President of the EPP group in the European Parliament, Manfred Weber, called on the European Commission to “urgently” negotiate a readmission agreement with Iraq. (SP)