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.

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.

Belarus' aircraft hijacking and its repercussions

Timothy Snyder is stressing the importance of the EU responding to the air piracy just committed by Belarus on a Ryanair flight legally passing through its airspace traveling from one EU country to another, Greece to Lithuania. (Terror vs. the Truth in Belarus Substack 05/24/2021)

Sergei Kuznetsov reports on the hijacking in Why the Belarusian journalist was snatched from the Ryanair flight Politico EU 05/24/2021:

Both [Roman] Protasevich and a female companion, Sofia Sapega, were reportedly arrested during the enforced stopover — an incident denounced by leaders around the world as a “hijacking.” Ryanair called the forced landing an “act of aviation piracy.”

The measures to seize Protasevich were extraordinary, and they now expose Belarus to the fury of the EU and U.S. and to potential sanctions, but for Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime leader of Belarus, the threat posed by Protasevich and other bloggers and journalists is extraordinary as well.

Protasevich, 26, is among a group of inventive journalists who have detailed the violence used by forces loyal to Lukashenko to help him hang on to power. They’ve also covered the mass protests sparked by the August presidential elections — widely considered to have been stolen by Lukashenko — and also actively coordinated them. [my emphasis]

Snyder in his column gives this background:

Protasevich is important because he told the truth about his own country. Last August the Belarusian dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, sought to stage yet another fake electoral victory. His usual tactic of disqualifying and arresting opponents was not working. The wife of one of his opponents ran against him, and almost certainly won. After Lukashenko announced a victory anyway, Belarusians protested peacefully in very large numbers for months. Protasevich at the time worked for NEXTA, a Telegram channel that provided Belarusians with the facts about what was happening in their own country. [my emphasis]

This kind of action - having a jet fighter force down a civil aircraft legally passing through national airspace on what was apparently a false pretence that there was some kind of terrorist danger to the plane, then arresting two people on the flight - is definitely not any kind of normal procedure. Austrian political scientist Martin Malek in the discussion referenced just below called it "a very unusual hijacking of an aircraft."

And while people in many parts of the world may assume that news from Belarus is about some inscrutable event in a mysterious eastern European country. But air piracy is something that in itself has worldwide implications. And in this case, it was a national government committing the piracy. Molly Olmstead explains in How Much Will the Belarus Flight Incident Mess Up Air Travel? Slate 05/25/2021 asks Ian Petchenik of Flightradar24:

How big of a deal is this?

It’s a huge deal. There’s very specific conventions in international law that relate to the operation of international air traffic. And this is really one of those things where it’s very clear that you’re not supposed to do this. This could have ended so badly, beyond the current situation, which ended terribly. What happens if that pilot misinterprets what the Ryanair aircraft is doing? What happens if they can’t communicate clearly? There’s so many things that could have gone wrong from 39,000 feet, when they met each other.

Then, on top of all of that, what happens now, in a real situation, where there is possibly a bomb on a plane? Does the pilot believe the air traffic controller who’s relaying that message? If there are all of a sudden fighter jets escorting the aircraft, is there a second thought there? One of the rules is if a fighter jet comes up on your wing, you should listen to that person, because if you are under threat, they have your safety in mind. So now do I second guess all that? Question if it’s false information about an emergency?

The Institute for Human Sciences (IHS) in Vienna held a Zoom discussion organized by Snyder on the incident, The Hijack: Europe, Belarus, and the Abduction of Roman Protasevich 25 May 2021:

Belarus is a former Soviet republic which briefly had democratic elections after its independence. The office of President was established in 1994 and Alexander Lukashenko was elected to the office, which he has filled ever since. Professor Viktoras Bachmetjevas of Lithuania argues that the 1994 election was a legitimate democratic one. But Lukashenko has become increasing authoritarian. And after the election of August 2020 which the public widely regarded as fraudulent, protests against his regime became widespread.

Bachmetjevas points out that much of the industry in Belarus is still state-owned, a legacy of the Soviet era. Belarus has a formal unity agreement with Russia. But Belarus under Lukashenko the last 27 years has tried to strike a balance between the EU and Russia. Fiona Hill said in the conference that the Belarus-Russia union treaty was mainly symbolic, but has become more substantive a relationship over time.

A big consideration is how the EU sees the relationship between Belarus and Russia and how they assess the risks involved. Hill argues that if Lukashenko had been successfully voted out in 2020, Putin would have been concerned that would endanger his own plans for a Russia renewal in combination with Belarus. So Lukashenko is now strongly aligned with Moscow. She thinks he is trying to suppress the opposition to make him seem more valuable to Putin.

She recounts how in 2018, Lukashenko was in a phase of tilting more toward Europe, trying to get more European and American investors, in order to get some distance from Russia with a neoliberal/technocratic approach, hoping the move would help him in the 2020 election.

She also makes the important point that Belarus is the only land link to Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg). Although even then, direct land access would also have to be granted by Poland or Lithuania.

In that same discussion, Sławomir Sierakowski, editor-in-chief of the left-leaning Polish journal Krytyka Polityczna, talks about NEXTA, the Telegram channel for which Protasevich wrote. He describes how young organizers were able to coordinate the massive post-election protests in Belarus. He thinks Lukaschnko's motives in the Ryanair hijacking include (1) revenge; (2) context - to squeeze Protasevich for information about other organizers (3) and, state terror, to scare other dissidents. Sierakowski stressed that Protasevich is in real danger now.

The IHS discussion highlights a number of issues in EU response to this incident. On the one hand, the issue really is important, both because of the human rights dangers to the two people kidnapped and the broader implications for air safety and international cooperation against real terrorist threats. But, as in most international sanctions against nations, the pressure on the leaders has to be considered along with the effects on the population and what implications that might have on Belarus' political system and international alignments. Despite the talk for the last couple of decades about "smart sanctions," any sanctions that are tough enough to push a country's leaders to change policy are almost certain to have significant detrimental effects on the people of the country.

It's also important in this and other situations to remember that the legitimate interest of political actors in one country in human rights and democracy in another country function on a continuum from democratic internationalism and international civil society interactions, on one end, to governments meddling in other countries' internal politics. The fact that a country or a party or a national leader may view any external criticism or any cooperation by people in other countries with dissidents from their own country as subversion or a hostile intelligence operation doesn't mean that they aren't legitimate civil society interactions between people of different countries. It also doesn't mean that that such accusations are always wrong. Because governments do meddle in each others internal politics and intelligence agencies do sometimes carry out hostile operations in other countries, even in peacetime. (Ask anyone from Latin America about how that works.)

So whenever we try to understand situations like the one in Belarus including this recent act of air piracy, we have to be able to walk and talk at the same time. And to remember some cynical truisms like, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you."