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Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis will present this proposal to his Nordic and Baltic counterparts in Brussels on Sunday evening, with whom he will meet to discuss positions ahead of the EU Foreign Ministers meeting on Monday.
“Using migration as a weapon against EU countries is even more cynical than hijacking a Ryanair plane. I am sure that our Nordic and Baltic colleagues will agree that regimes that use migrants as a hybrid weapon of attack should receive a painful united response from the EU, “Landsbergis said in a comment sent to BNS.
“Our policy should, in general, deter authoritarian regimes from using the people as a tool for political blackmail across the EU. We therefore look forward to the support of our Nordic and Baltic colleagues for new sanctions against the Belarusian regime; we will talk about them tomorrow at the Foreign Affairs Council in Brussels, “he added.
The minister did not mention the specific sanctions proposed.
Lithuania proposes new sanctions for Belarus The EU has recently agreed on a sectoral sanctions package for the country. It was confirmed after Belarus directed a Ryanair plane flying from Vilnius to Minsk and arrested opposition blogger Raman Pratasevich and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega.
The EU has also imposed various sanctions on Belarus in response to the Aliaksandr Lukashenko regime’s crackdown on the country’s opposition following last year’s presidential elections.
As relations with Belarus deteriorated, a record number of illegal immigrants began to travel to Lithuania through this country.
A total of 1,634 migrants were detained by Lithuanian officials at the border with Belarus this year, 20 times more than last year. Many of them are from African countries and the Middle East.
Minsk claims that migrants are no longer detained on Belarusian territory due to EU sanctions.
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