Kazakevich: Lukashenka’s Attempt to Influence Neighbors Through the Migration Crisis Has Failed

On the contrary, the position of EU countries has become even more consolidated and tougher, Andrei Kazakevich, director of the Political Sphere Institute, told Belarusian Partisan.
— Because of the migration crisis, the European Union has begun preparing a fifth package of sanctions against Belarus.

What might it include?
— First, sanctions may be adopted against officials who were involved in political repression against civil society and the media: against judges, prosecutors, employees of the Ministry of Justice and executive committees.

These sanctions will probably be symbolic in nature, and it will be relatively easy for EU countries to agree on their approval.

Second, an expansion of the blacklist of companies is being discussed.

Belavia is being named, and specific sanctions may already be adopted against it, as well as companies that facilitated the transport of migrants from Iraq and other countries.

Sanctions against other state-owned enterprises cannot be ruled out.

Advertising But there appears to be no consensus on this issue at the European level.

It is therefore difficult to predict whether these sanctions will be adopted.

Further sanctions against businesspeople connected to Lukashenka are also being discussed.

But adopting them will also be difficult: businesspeople are actively lobbying their interests, and their representatives are working in Brussels.

September is being named as a possible nearest date for the adoption of the fifth sanctions package.
— Poland has introduced a state of emergency on the border with Belarus.

Will the new sanctions, or perhaps even the threat of them, force the Belarusian authorities to abandon the conflict with their neighbors?
— It seems that the peak of tension at the borders involving irregular migrants has already passed.

It came in mid-summer and early August.

It appears that the migration crisis was one of the last mechanisms by which the Belarusian authorities wanted to influence and put pressure on European Union countries.

There were intentions to introduce sanctions against European companies, but this produced no result.

The increase in Russia’s military presence in Belarus also had no effect.

The authorities frightened Europe with the prospect of an increase in drug trafficking and other issues related to crime.

But in that case Minsk risks provoking a very harsh response.

It seems to me that the Belarusian authorities will now be much more cautious about the prospect of conflicts with neighbors and will no longer try to escalate the situation further.

Sanctions are forcing them into this.

Although the regime continues to behave irrationally, it should be coming to understand that it is not gaining any advantages from this, while such actions are becoming more and more costly for the state.
— In other words, the regime’s attempt to influence its neighbors through the migration crisis has failed?
— I think it has unequivocally failed.

At the European level, there has not even been a discussion about the possible lifting of sanctions or about revising the restrictions already adopted.

And that was precisely the regime’s goal.

There were even fantasies that, as a result of the migration crisis, the government in Lithuania would fall and forces with whom Minsk could conduct dialogue would come to power.

But the opposite happened: Europe closed itself off even more, they do not want to negotiate with Lukashenka there, and the position of EU countries has become even more consolidated and tougher.

This is also evidenced by the preparation of the fifth sanctions package.

Source (https://palityka.org/wp-admin/post-new.php)