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The current Slovenian Presidency has indicated that a videoconference meeting will take place on 18 August within the framework of the Crisis Response Mechanism.
The Ministers of the Interior of the 27 EU Member States were invited, as well as the Community Border Agencies FRONTEX, the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) and Europol.
“Faced with this situation on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border, the EU faces a serious threat to its security and is monitoring the conversion of illegal migration into a weapon supported by the Belarusian state,” said a Slovenian representative.
“The situation is complex, it involves several actors. “Interior ministers can only address one aspect of this situation and it is clear that more action is needed at the European level,” he added.
On Thursday, the European Union diplomatic service summoned the Belarusian Chargé d’affaires in Brussels and demanded that the “turnaround” of the influx of migrants to Lithuania be completed.
Vilnius and Brussels accuse authoritarian Belarusian President Aliaksandr Lukashenko of deliberately encouraging the flow of illegal immigrants to Lithuania in retaliation for Community sanctions against his regime.
This year, more than 4,000 people entered Lithuania through the Belarusian border. migrants, many of them from Iraq.
This week, Lithuanian border guards began to return newcomers to Belarus who were trying to cross the border. At that time, Brussels asked Iraq, where many of these people come from, to suspend flights to Minsk.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned last month that EU members were working on tougher sanctions to complement those already in place for Lukashenko and his allies.
These measures could be adopted in the Council of the EU on September 21.
The EU already imposes sanctions on 166 people, including Mr. Lukashenko and his two sons, as well as 15 companies and agencies affiliated with the Belarusian government.
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