The Diplomat
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, condemned yesterday in the Congress of Deputies the “unacceptable use of migrants” by the president of Belarus, Alexandr Lukashenko, and called for “a common policy” migration within the EU to prevent such situations.
“The unacceptable use of migrants” by Belarus to “put pressure” on Poland’s borders “is putting the lives of thousands of human beings at risk” and, for that reason, the EU is preparing a fifth package of sanctions to give a “firm, clear and European” response to the political use of irregular migratory flows, Albares warned during his appearance before the EU Joint Committee to explain the main lines of his Department’s European external action.
During the EU Foreign Affairs Council last Monday, Poland received “solidarity and support” for the adoption of “joint measures” in the face of “a political and migratory crisis that no country can face alone,” he continued. “The people who enter through Poland do not come to Poland, like those who enter Greece, Italy or Spain, they all come to Europe” and, therefore, “a common policy” on migration is necessary, through a European pact on migration and asylum, “and the development of common projects with our partners”, continued Albares, who said in this regard that “Spain is at the forefront of designing policies for the control of irregular migratory flows”.
During the EU Council last Monday, the European Foreign Ministers approved a modification of the sanctions regime against Belarus in response to “the instrumentalization of human beings carried out by the Belarusian regime for political purposes” on the border with Poland. “The political instrumentalization of migration is unacceptable in this case and in any other case,” Albares declared the same day, specifying that the EU had “agreed to extend the sanctions on Belarus to include persons and entities involved in the organization of illegal border crossings.”
For his part, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Josep Borrell, declared that the EU was “studying all possible options to prevent the regime from targeting both us and its own population, and we have agreed to extend the scope of application of the sanctions regime to Belarus”. Last Wednesday, Lukashenko and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed to start negotiations between the European Union and Belarus to resolve the migration crisis on the border with Poland.
During yesterday’s debate, Antón Gómez Reino, from Unidas Podemos, expressed his repulsion for the “unacceptable” existence of “an exclusion zone, where rights are being violated” on the Belarusian border, although he also criticized Poland’s response to this crisis. For his part, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, of Vox, again resorted to his usual argument of the “migratory invasion” and affirmed that, in the face of countries that “launch illegal immigrants” to attack the borders, the response is not to offer asylum policies, but to favor “secure borders”.
