European Council President Charles Michel called on the EU on Wednesday (10 November) to decide “quickly” on the potential financing from the EU budget of physical anti-migrant infrastructure at the EU’s external borders, saying that such funding would be legal from the point of view of the EU Council.
The President of the European Council was speaking in Warsaw alongside Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who again denounced Minsk’s actions and stressed that Poland was defending not only its borders, but also those of “the eastern part of the EU and NATO”. The Pole welcomed the EU’s support and the fact that “it speaks with one voice”.
He also welcomed the preparation of new sanctions against the Lukashenko regime and called for further diplomatic retaliatory measures. In particular, the Prime Minister announced the closure of additional border crossings, which will also have an economic impact on Belarus.
Criticised for not allowing any media or NGO access to the border area, he announced the forthcoming creation of a media centre.
Morawiecki also said he had asked for a video conference of EU leaders to discuss the situation “before the December European Council”.
For Charles Michel, it was important “to express the solidarity of the EU” in the face of a “brutal, violent and undignified attack”. Asked about the issue of anti-migrant walls and fences, he considered that the EU should soon “clarify its capacity to show solidarity or not with frontline countries that also defend common borders”, thus signalling a favourable position on these infrastructures. He also recalled that the debate had not been closed on 22 October at the European Summit (see EUROPE 12818/1).
Tensions
National ambassadors to the EU discussed such measures again on Wednesday morning, in what some said was a tense debate between supporters and opponents of such actions. The Commission is said to have reiterated its opposition to such ring-fencing from the European budget.
With regard to the sanctions envisaged against Minsk and third countries whose airlines could also be targeted, the ambassadors also agreed in principle to a fifth package of measures and suggested that a meeting of the EU Council’s crisis body, the IPCR, should also be convened to discuss these sanctions. They may talk again next week about these issues, including physical infrastructure.
Cooperation with the United States
Following a meeting with US President Joe Biden, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced cooperation between the EU and the US “on countries of origin and on sanctions against third country airlines involved in trafficking” in human beings.
While the EU is expected to adopt additional sanctions against individuals and entities next week, Mrs von der Leyen announced that Washington is preparing measures that will come into force in early December.
Believing that the situation on the border between Belarus and several EU Member States was not the result of a migration crisis, but an “attempt by an authoritarian regime to try to destabilise its democratic neighbours”, the Commission President warned that the Lukashenko regime would not succeed. She added that our democracies must be protected from a cynical geopolitical power game.
Mrs von der Leyen also said it was important for UN agencies to have access in Belarus to migrants in this “very, very difficult“ situation, [who are] “innocent people ”, she stressed. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Camille Cerise Gessant)