Tuesday, November 9th, 2021
“Need structural security”
Seehofer calls for EU aid for Poland
Poland tries to keep asylum seekers away from the borders of the EU with barbed wire fences and pushbacks. Federal Minister of the Interior Seehofer supports the tough course and sees the international community as being called upon to support Poland. According to the EU Commission, the country has not yet requested any help.
In view of the influx of thousands of refugees at the EU’s external border with Belarus, the acting Federal Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer, asked the EU for support for Poland and Germany. “Poland or Germany cannot cope with that alone,” Seehofer told the “Bild” newspaper. All EU states must now stand together, as the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko is trying to use the fate of the refugees “to destabilize the West”.
“We have to help the Polish government secure the external border. That would actually be the task of the EU Commission. I now appeal to them to take action,” said the acting interior minister. According to its own statement, the EU Commission has already encouraged Poland several times to accept help. The EU border protection agency Frontex, the asylum authority Easo and the police authority Europol are ready to help with the registration of migrants, processing of asylum applications and the fight against smuggling, it said on Monday. Poland must, however, request this help.
“Of course not with the use of firearms”
Seehofer accused Lukashenko of “deliberately generating and using” images of refugees and fleeing children at the border. Lukashenko will be supported by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Poland has reacted correctly so far, said Seehofer and welcomed the construction of a fortified border facility. “I also say that we need the structural security of the borders. We have to publicly support the Poles. We cannot criticize them for protecting the EU’s external border with permissible means,” said the interior minister. “Of course not with the use of firearms, but with the other options that exist.”
The EU accuses Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling refugees from the Middle East into the EU in order to retaliate for sanctions decisions taken in Brussels. Poland, Latvia and Lithuania have reported thousands of illegal border crossings from Belarus in the past few months. A spokesman for the Polish government announced on Monday that 3,000 to 4,000 migrants had gathered near the Polish border.
Poland reacted to the increasing number of migrants with a massive increase in the number of border guards, the erection of a barbed wire fence and the imposition of a state of emergency in the border area. So-called pushbacks have also been legalized. Pro Asyl asked Poland to ensure that the incoming refugees are taken care of. At the same time, the human rights organization criticized the Polish military operation on the border and the “inhuman rhetoric of the ‘hybrid war'”.