“We support our Member States who are experiencing this pressure at their borders” and they can take “certain exceptional measures”, declared Henna Virkkunen, Vice-President of the Commission in charge of security in particular.
Russia and Belarus “are organizing the arrival of these migrants to our borders and are trying to destabilize our societies with this,” said this European official. “We cannot accept it.”
“In a word, unacceptable”: the Commission determined to prevent Hungary from sending migrants to Brussels
“We will never let autocrats use our European values against us,” said the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, on X.
Since 2021, Poland has recorded an influx of thousands of migrants and refugees, mainly from the Middle East and Africa who are trying to enter the country via Belarus, an operation attributed to the Minsk regime with the aim of destabilizing the region and the EU.
In May, Poland announced that it would spend more than 2.3 billion euros to strengthen the Polish-Belarusian border which marks the eastern limit of the EU.
On Wednesday, the Commission announced an additional 170 million euros to support states in monitoring the borders with Russia and Belarus, including 52 million euros for Poland, 50 million for Finland, 19.4 million for the Estonia, 17 million for Latvia and 15.4 million euros for Lithuania.
