Belarus: The EU can neutralise Minsk’s hybrid attacks only by standing united

The Renew Europe Group in the European Parliament welcomes the new broadened sanctions package targeting individuals and entities organising or contributing to activities by Lukashenka's regime that facilitate illegal crossing of the EU’s external borders.

The extra EU funds intended to help those Member States confronted with hybrid attacks by Belarus and the supplementary measures announced today by the European Commission are good examples of solidarity. But these actions must be also accompanied by a coherent and strong EU asylum and migration policy, if we want to prevent Lukashenka blackmailing the EU and targeting both European and Belarusian people.

The humanitarian crisis must be addressed immediately, as migrants trapped at the Polish border lack adequate shelter, food, water and medical care.

Speaking in today’s plenary debate Renew Europe MEP, Petras Auštrevičius (Lithuanian Liberal Movement), the European Parliament’s standing rapporteur on Belarus, said:

“This intentionally caused migration crisis is used by the Lukashenka regime to threaten, influence and weaken the EU's internal and foreign policy. It is a growing multidimensional threat with Kremlin’s hand in it. We, as the European Union, must maintain our unity in responding to Lukashenka's hybrid attacks, not recognize his illegal regime and support the call by the people of Belarus for free and democratic elections and justice for the repression suffered.”

Renew Europe MEP, Nathalie Loiseau (Renaissance Delegation, France), Chair of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, added:

“We have no reason to give in to Lukashenka, a blackmailer. We must learn to protect ourselves against hybrid attacks, a low cost war that authoritarian regimes are waging on Europe. For these authoritarians, anything goes. We will respond to these attacks by respecting the law, because these are our values, but we are responding because it is our right to do so.”

ENDS