Enlarge image
Lithuania's Interior Minister, Agne Bilotaite at the Lithuanian-Belarusian border
Photo: PETRAS MALUKAS / AFP
At a border protection conference in Lithuania, 16 EU countries signed a joint declaration.
In it, they call on the EU to provide “appropriate financial support” for measures against unwanted migration.
Accordingly, "physical infrastructure" for border protection should also be financed from EU funds.
"Member States at the external borders and Member States under migratory pressure should be supported by the EU and EU agencies," said Lithuanian Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite.
The EU Commission rejects demands for the assumption of costs for the construction of border fences to deter migrants.
"If member states want to build fences, they can do so, but the Commission has long taken the position not to fund walls or barbed wire fences," said EU Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson.
For months, thousands of migrants have been trying to get from Belarus to Poland or the Baltic States.
The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko started bringing refugees from the Middle East to the borders with the EU last summer.
Lithuania was particularly affected at first.
The government in Vilnius responded by building hundreds of kilometers of border fences.
The Lithuanian border guard has been turning migrants away since August 2021.
Bilotaite said that Lithuania was able to prevent over 8,000 migrants from crossing the border.
EU interior commissioner speaks of illegal pushbacks
Johansson, on the other hand, stressed during her visit to the Lithuania-Belarus border that pushing migrants back from EU territory is illegal.
“Pushbacks are clearly illegal.
People have the right to apply for asylum,” she said before the conference of EU interior ministers.
According to aid organizations, almost 8,200 people were pushed back on the border between Lithuania and Belarus alone.
The governments of the EU countries bordering Belarus, on the other hand, have defended the pushbacks as the only way to deal with the large number of migrants.
“We must not cling to bureaucracy.
We must act, especially if we are attacked,” said Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski.
In the past few weeks, the number of migrants at the borders has decreased significantly.
However, the calm is "deceptive," said Bilotaite: "Our border guards know that a group of migrants could appear there at any moment."
The head of the EU border protection agency Frontex, Fabrice Leggeri, said he hoped for "legal clarification" on how to deal with refugees at the border.
It must be clarified "what is possible and what is not".
jso/AFP/dpa