Brussels blamed Minsk for the migration crisis, but the West is the only responsible. The problem of irregular migratory flows at the EU-Belarus border is in fact due to the Western policies, including decades of military interventions in the Middle East and North Africa.
Summary
The EU is facing a financial and ideological crisis. It has insufficient money to accommodate migrants. It also failed to integrate migrants who arrived in the EU in the past. The EU fails to do what it preaches when it comes to liberal values and openness to migrants. The EU also proved that it cannot live peacefully with Belarus – for many years it has been trying to swallow it, either promising benefits for being loyal in conflict with Moscow or introducing strict sanctions. The current crisis the EU faces can become a turning point after which, if not a collapse, then a degradation is probable. The EU will either degrade and turn into a ghetto of migrants or will undergo a serious cultural transformation.
Disproof
Recurrent pro-Kremlin claim and disinformation about EUs imminent collapse.
This publication obfuscates the actual reasons behind EU sanctions against the Belarusian regime and promotes recurring disinformation narratives about Western attempts to disrupt Belarusian-Russian relations, about the decadent EU and its imminent disintegration, and the ongoing migration situation on the eastern border of the European Union with Belarus.
The EU did not recognise the falsified results of the Belarusian Presidential election on 9 August 2020 or the new mandate claimed by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. On 2 October 2020, the Council imposed the first round of restrictive measures over ongoing repression. The EU imposed two more rounds of restrictive measures against the Belarusian regime in 2020, followed by the fourth package of sanctions in view of the escalation of serious human rights violations and the forced landing of a Ryanair flight.
On 15 November 2021, the EU broadened the scope for sanctions to tackle hybrid attacks and instrumentalisation of migrants. The EU will now be able to target individuals and entities organising or contributing to activities by the Lukashenka regime that facilitate the illegal crossing of the EU's external borders. This came amid the growing instrumentalisation of migration by the Belarusian authorities.
Earlier, European Commission President von der Leyen has stated that the situation on the EU-Belarus border is "the attempt of an authoritarian regime to try to destabilise its democratic neighbours". Similarly, High Representative Josep Borrell has highlighted that the Lukashenka regime is weaponising human beings as a tool for political purposes by giving migrants false expectations and putting them in a situation of extreme vulnerability.
Read earlier disinformation cases alleging that the EU adopts sanctions against Belarus to manage its own internal contradictions, that migrants in Lithuania are kept in concentration camps in unsanitary conditions, and that the West needs to tear Belarus away from Russia.
See our articles on the Belarus migrants situation here and here.