Since 2021, the Belarus regime initiated a hybrid war against the EU, targeting the borders of Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. Poland paid the heavier consequences as Belarusian forces pushed waves of migrants to enter its territory illegally. During the fights between the Polish army and migrants, a Polish soldier was killed. Moreover, the Minsk regime, which deploys a vast intimidation campaign against human rights defenders, opposition politicians and the media, also imprisoned Polish-origin journalists, such as Andrzej Poczobut, an activist and journalist of the Polish minority.
As the situation deteriorates, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrzej Sheyna announced that Poland is considering stopping transporting goods from Belarus across its border.
The EU measures
Aleksandr Lukashenko, the President of Belarus, installed an Orwellian-kind dictatorial regime that targets not only the democratic opposition, the media and human rights activists but also their relatives. The European Commission condemned in the strongest possible terms the recent wave of repression against political prisoners in Belarus. The European Parliament did so on several occasions. On 28 June 2021, the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that Belarus would suspend its membership in the Eastern Partnership.
Lukashenko made his country a colony of Russia and aligned with Vladimir Putin during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. On June 27, the European Council held a formal meeting and decided to impose additional sanctions on Belarus due to its participation in Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine.
The new sanctions against Belarus aligned with measures against Russia, making EU sanctions more effective. They impact various sectors of the Belarusian economy and aim to combat circumvention. Specifically, the sanctions extend export restrictions on dual-use and advanced technology goods and prohibit imports of goods, allowing Belarus to diversify its revenue sources, as well as gold and diamonds.
Transport of goods
The Polish minister set three conditions for Belarus to normalise relations.
The first, and critical for the relations between Poland and Belarus but also for the EU’s security, demands that Minsk stop hybrid attacks.
The Polish-Belarusian border crisis began in July 2021, when Alexander Lukashenko threatened to “flood” the EU with “drugs and migrants”. Consequently, Minsk and Moscow established a route from third countries towards the Belarus border, promising migrants easy access to the EU territories. Their purpose was to destabilise Poland, Lithuania and Latvia. Thousands of migrants were then violently directed against the Polish border guards, creating a permanent crisis in the area.
The second condition is the extradition of the murderer of the Polish soldier Mateusz Sitek, who was stabbed in the chest by a migrant on May 28 and died on June 6.
The third condition is the release of political prisoners of Polish origin, including Andrzej Poczobut.
