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Most immigrants arrive in Lithuania from Belarus without documents. According to Lithuanian diplomats, they cannot be returned without identification.
Iraq issues travel documents only on voluntary request. The Lithuanian Foreign Minister promises to go to Iraq to negotiate the expulsion of migrants, because the current EU-Iraq agreement does not work in practice: a lower-level bilateral agreement is needed.
According to Danguolė Seniutienė, a professor at Mykolas Romeris University, the current number of immigrants is still under control, but as they grow, they will have to seek support from the EU institutions and other countries.
“Lithuania could not only, but should also receive help from other countries in this matter and not only from the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), but also at national level from other Member States, such as Lithuania, for example, in 2014-2015, law enforcement teams delegated to support and ensure management of the situation “, 15 minutes said the expert.
According to her, in addition to the increase in the number of migrants, the need to provide these people with additional health, accommodation and other services can also generate social dissatisfaction among citizens.
“For this reason, when registering the growing number of migrants, it is necessary to take into account the consistent information of citizens, so as not to generate additional panic in the state,” he emphasized.
Lithuania and other Western countries claim that the structures of the Belarusian regime contribute to illegal migration flows, and this changes the attitude towards the process itself.
Luke April / Photo of 15min / The first migrants settled in the city of tents
“The question arises as to whether the two legal categories ‘right to migrate’ and ‘right to security’ can be combined on the same scales. More importantly, there is no single categorical answer, ”he said.
Not refugees, but economic migrants
Iraqi citizens cross the border between Belarus and Lithuania the most. Also many people come from Iran, Syria, Sri Lanka.
Economist Raimondas Kuodis says that migrants who want to enter the European Union through Belarus are “part of a diversion scheme.”
“They are part of a state diversion scheme. In other words, the Belarusian state tourism company is renting those people and bringing them here. I propose to treat them like green people in Crimea. ” 15 minutes R. Kuodis said.
Photo by Sigismund Gedvila / 15min / Raimondas Kuodis
“Green people should have a law that they are not housed in Pabradė, but in Lukiškės, because they are part of the diverse scheme and understand all this perfectly,” added the professor.
He stressed that people who move from a conflict-affected country to the nearest safe country should be considered refugees.
“Everyone who goes from Syria to Germany is not a refugee. These are economic migrants. Let’s be honest. And those who are transported for various purposes, from what we show you here, closing them with some migrants from the devil know where, here there is no migrants ”, R. Kuodis taught his position.
He assured that “the problem must be addressed from the root.”
“We will become migrants, we will have nowhere to put them, they will begin to slide through the cities and who needs all this. Then we will be tempted to get rid of them. “There will be a problem that will be passed on to others, it is better for Europe to avoid this kind of thing by crossing the root of the problem,” said the professor.
It is too early to assess the potential economic consequences
At the time, Tadas Povilauskas, an economist at SEB Bank, said it was too early to say what the possible economic and social consequences of this process were.
“For most illegal immigrants, Lithuania is basically a stopover. From what I understand, it is still not a trend to say that those people will stay in Lithuania. Therefore, it is probably too early to say that this affects or will affect the labor market or the social situation, when most of them travel further to Western Europe ”, said T. Povilauskas.
According to the economist, the situation would change if those people stayed in Lithuania, but other European Union countries already have a similar experience, so Lithuania could benefit from it.
Photo from personal archive / Tadas Povilauskas
“It is important to understand that several EU countries have taken that path and there is something to learn from it and how to do it. There is no need to build any kind of bicycle here, you just have to take the experience of the southern EU countries and see where there were errors and where there were good things. Here they expect great things in this case, but we are neither the first nor the last, “said the economist.
Show the face of the mode
Political scientist Vytis Jurkonis, representative of the human rights organization Freedom House in Lithuania, said that the migration crisis first reveals how the Belarusian regime works, which has border controls, but carries them out selectively: it does not expel its citizens, but it goes through the population of the Middle East.
“Obviously, that filter is there and it is a deliberate act”, 15 minutes he said.
Photo by Julius Kalinskas / 15min / Vytis Jurkonis
In his opinion, some migrants are actually fleeing repression, but Belarus is using it, directing its flows to Lithuania and thus complicating the situation for both the country and the migrants.
V. Jurkonis stated that all migrants, regardless of which country they come from, should be treated on an equal footing, because each of them has the right to request asylum and to receive it or not according to objective criteria.
However, the most important thing is to jointly strengthen the security of the Lithuanian border, which would help solve not only the problems of migrants, but also other problems related to Belarus, he said.
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