EU trembles before "hybrid operations" (i.e., a few thousand refugees) from Belarus' Lukashenko

Jacopo Barigazzi reports on the EU's reaction to Belarus releasing refugees from Iraq, Syria, and Africa into Lithuania as part of the Belarus-EU confrontation over various issue, particularly Belarus' extraordinary action in forcing down a commercial airliner on the false pretence of a terrorist threat in order to kidnap a dissident Belarusian journalist and his girlfriend. This led to the EU suspending flights to and from Belarus. (EU pledges to step up efforts to help Lithuania stem migration from Belarus Politico EU 08/02/2021)

Belarus and its dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko know that the EU has a broken system for handling refugees, much less the huge and unusual influx of the 2015-16 crisis. Far too many EU politicians use xenophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric for cheap political points and try to push the problem onto somebody else. The Politico article reflects the framing of refugees as a security threat to the EU.

Part of the anti-immigrant rhetoric in the EU is to use "migrant" as an inclusive term for refugees, people who are hired by EU employers, people fleeing bad economic or environmental conditions who may technically not qualify for asylum or permanent residence, and refugees from ongoing wars or severe political oppression. "Migrant" implies that they just voluntarily wandered into the EU. Austrian politicians like to say they are coming to take advantage of Austria's social safety-net "hammock."

My emphasis in bold):

This is not primarily a migration crisis, this is an act of aggression that is aimed to provoke,” the EU’s commissioner for home affairs, Ylva Johansson, said during a press conference in Vilnius. “What we are facing is an aggressive act from the Lukashenko regime.

Yet for Lithuania, it is increasingly a migration crisis.

The allegation is that Belarus is “weaponizing” migrants by facilitating their arrival and that several flights are landing in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, carrying migrants from Istanbul and Baghdad.

The bloc [EU] believes this is in retaliation against EU sanctions targeting Lukashenko and his allies.

The situation “is deteriorating, more people are arriving,” Johansson said, adding that “a lot more needs to be done” to protect Lithuania’s external border.

... the EU agencies active on migration have deployed staff to the country: for example, almost 120 Frontex officers, 86 of them border patrol guards, have already deployed.

Vilnius also wants to install some kind of physical barrier at the border with Belarus, Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė said at the same press conference. EU money is not usually provided for the building of walls but she promised to go ahead anyway. [BUILD-THE-WALL! BUILD-THE-WALL! Lithuania needs to look for better role models, I think.]

"Lukashenko keeps waging hybrid operations against the EU and it is our duty to react and take decisions fast,” said a senior EU diplomat.

My point here is that the EU has effectively created an unnecessary vulnerability for itself by the combination of its unnecessarily stringent general immigration policy and its broken refugee process that depends on the "Dublin System" of processing new entries to the Schengen area that was never designed for significant refugee flows. And since the EU not only reacts with rhetorical overkill to even small refugee flows like those currently from Belarus into Lithuania, but quickly resorts to nationalistic resentments against other, its less friendly neighbors like Belarus at the moment know they can create a political trauma for the EU at relatively little cost to themselves.

The EU has legitimate concerns about its neighbor Belarus, including the stolen presidential election of 2020 there. Because Lukashenko's increasingly authoritarian turn increases the likelihood of problems just like the air piracy incident in May.

And threats of sending additional refugees into the EU are an obvious response to EU actions. Lukashenko is even flying them in from other countries, which doesn't cost a lot. Because, obviously, the EU could end the "hybrid operations" of, uh, Belarus releasing a couple of thousand refugees to cross the border by simply dropping its air travel restrictions on Belarus. Which would not only be a big mistake on the substance. But it would be a remarkable demonstration of weakness by the EU.

And Lukashenko may be up to more serious mischief, as well: Vitaly Shishov: Head of Belarus exiles group found dead in Ukraine BBC News 08/04/2021.

And, of course, Turkey is holding 3.5 million or so refugees under its agreement with the EU negotiated by Angela Merkel in 2016. We can take it for granted that Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan is following the Belarus refugee situation very closely. Because, if Lukashenko can bully the EU into submission with w few thousand refugees, imagine what Erdoğan can do.

To close: Yes, countries have to pay attention to border enforcement, which normally is and should be a civilian police function. But for the EU leaders to talk about refugees in terms of military threat and imminent danger - Austrian Chancellor Basti Kurz, for one, constantly uses such language - is ridiculous threat inflation. They need to knock it off. And, much more importantly, they need to set up a realistic EU refugee policy that goes beyond the Dublin System.