How to make the EU look pitifully weak and irresponsible: send a few thousand refugees across the border and watch the EU panic

There's a real crisis on the border of Poland to Belarus. It results most directly from Belarus - often called "Europe's last dictatorship" - committing air piracy in May on a flight crossing its territory in order to kidnap a prominent critic of the government and his girlfriend.

The EU understandably imposed sanctions on Belarus for it. Because if the Belarusian government is going to commit air piracy on civilian flights, that not only a breach of international law and agreements, it's a very practical problem for commercial flights in that part of Europe. Although the incident touched on internal Belarusian politics, the sanctions were in response to a very practical problem for international air traffic, not an intervention in internal Belarusian affairs. (The EU had earlier imposed sanctions on Belarus that were directly related to issues involving the 2020 Belarussian presidential election and treatment of the opposition. See also: EU Sanctions Map-Belarus 06/24/2021)

So, knowing that the EU is still pitifully weak in its crisis planning for unexpected refugee flows, Belarus starting flying asylum seekers from the greater Middle East into Belarus and sending them across the border. On cue, Poland freaked out and violated international and EU law with brutal retaliation against the refugees themselves.

This round of confrontation began in May. Which could and should lead regular citizens to ask, why is this only now becoming a prominent story? See my earlier posts, Belarus' aircraft hijacking and its repercussions 05/26/2021; The EU and the political cisis in Belarus 08/14/2020

Turkey cooperated with sending refugees to Belarus, because it sees an interest in reminding EU countries that it can generate a new 2015-style refugee crisis any time it wants. The EU has had almost six years since the original signing of the EU-Turkey agreement in 2016, under which Turkey is currently housing about 3.5 million refugees, to work on the then-anticipated systematic admission of large numbers of those immigrants into EU countries. Instead, the EU has been merrily kicking the can down the road ever since.

Turkey is playing its own cynical game. But Tayyip Erdoğan's government knows it can do so because of the sad state of EU immigration/refugee policy. So, for instance, if Austria or Germany wants to put limits on formal political and financial ties of the Turkish government to Turkish groups in their countries, or want to limit Turkish funding for dubious religious projects that could have national security implications (i.e., sponsoring radical Islamic activists), well, Erdoğan knows their governments are terrified of his refugee supply heading north.

Belarus, including under the current dictatorial President Alexander Lukashenko, has aimed in its foreign policy at balancing its relations between Russia and the EU. The EU has issues with Belarus over its political and human rights policies. But it also has an interest in not driving Belarus politically into a heavier dependence on Russia. That's the larger background against which the current deadly drama is playing out. And both Russia and Belarus are very aware that Europe's absurd panic reaction in the face of the "threat" of a few thousand extra refugees arriving can lead European politicians to make decisions that are short-sighted in terms of practical foreign policy and also make the EU politicians' propaganda use of their superior "European values" look like the most cynical hypocrisy.

Here are some reports on the current situation. It's worth watching in reports on this for how often they contain references to refugees as a national security threat, or how refugees are described in the terms of menace, including natural catastrophe metaphors like "flood" and military ones like "hybrid warfare."

Belarus has launched a hybrid war on Poland and Europe, using migrants as weapons. In response, Poland has created not just a humanitarian crisis but moral, legal, and administrative chaos. https://t.co/ipuA1w4tyv

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) November 13, 2021

Although her own use of the term "hybrid war" there strikes me as misguided, Applebaum in the article also does rightly criticize Poland for that same kind of rhetoric: "Even on its own terms, [Poland's seriously illegal] “pushback” [of asylum-seekers] has failed disastrously. Lukashenko has not been deterred. On the contrary, Poland’s hybrid-war rhetoric seems to have encouraged him to find new ways to troll Polish border guards and pile in more Belarusian troops, as if this really were a war and they really were needed." (my emphasis)

Poland may call NATO for help with Belarus border crisis Deutsche Welle News 11/15/2021:

Also from Deutsche Welle, Turkey stops flying citizens of Iraq, Syria, Yemen to Belarus 11/13/2021:

‘Please save us’: Refugees face death at Poland-Belarus border Aljazeera English 11/15/2021

Warnings that Belarus migrant crisis risks military conflict BBC News 11/13/2021:

Jana Wolf, Härte und Humanität: Auswege aus dem Flüchtlingsdrama gesucht RP Online 14.11.2021

Gerald Knaus, Die teuflische Falle aus Minsk Standard 13.11.2021

Marcel Leubecher, „So könnte die EU Lukaschenkos Erpressungsversuch ins Leere laufen lassen“ Die Welt 13.11.2021

John Follain and Birgit Jennen, EU Backs New Sanctions Powers on Belarus Over Migrant Flows Bloomberg News 11/15/2021.

Andrew Connelly, Don’t Blame Belarus. Blame Brussels. Foreign Policy 11/11/2021

Belarus migrants: Poland PM blames Russia's Putin for migrant crisis BBC News 11/10/2021

EU to sanction Belarus as border crisis persists: Live updates Aljazeera 11/15/2012

Pawel Zerka, How half-hearted sanctions put the future of Belarus at risk European Council on Foreign Relations 09/30/2021

This is a dramatic case in which the EU's lack of a sensible immigration/refugee policy constitutes a real weakness for the EU, and gives adversarial powers the ability to promote disunity and a toxic form of political polarization within EU countries. In this case, it also gives Poland a way to blackmail the EU in its current legal conflicts with the EU itself with criminal cruelty against desperate refugees.