Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki negatively assessed the call of German Chancellor Angela Merkel to President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko. With this act, Merkel contributed to the legitimization of his regime, Morawiecki said in an interview with DPA.
Prior to this, the Polish prime minister visited Berlin to meet with Chancellor-Appointed Olaf Scholz and Merkel, who will soon be leaving the post. The parties discussed the migration crisis on the border between Poland and Belarus and measures to respond to it.
According to Morawiecki, the European Union should get involved in the search for a diplomatic solution, but Merkel’s call to Lukashenko helped legitimize his regime in a country where the struggle for freedom has been going on for 15 months.
“Lukashenka also abused the conversation with Angela Merkel. He pretended that Merkel agreed to transport 2,000 immigrants to Germany and other European countries along the corridor, ”the Polish prime minister said.
Morawiecki also explained why the country does not accept EU assistance to protect the border. Poland has 15,000 border guards and the same number of soldiers at its disposal, and the state’s border is rather narrow. At the same time, the agency Frontex, which offered assistance, has up to 1200 people for all external borders of the European Union.
Poland will cooperate with Belarus in financing the return of migrants to Iraq and other countries, but they will not wait long for EU assistance in this matter.
“This should be a common effort, but we can also act very quickly and independently,” the prime minister stressed.
He added that the previous refugee policy had turned out to be wrong, and most EU countries realized that it was impossible to adhere to the principle of “open doors” and “multiculturalism”.
This year, several countries bordering Belarus (Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia) have announced an unprecedented influx of illegal migrants from the territory of the republic. The EU accused Minsk of organizing channels of illegal migration in order to force the EU to lift sanctions from the republic. President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko proposed the EU to create a humanitarian corridor for 2,000 refugees. The German Cabinet called this decision unacceptable. On November 22, the President of Belarus accused the EU of unwillingness to negotiate the situation with migrants.
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