EFA President calls for European response to crisis at EU/Belarus border
Press release from EFA MEP Jordi Solé
President of the EFA Group in the European Parliament Jordi Solé MEP has called for a European response to the growing migrant crisis at the EU's border with Belarus.
Belarus' dictator Lukashenko stands accused of cruelly using migrants as a tool in a hybrid attack on the EU, following earlier sanctions against his regime.
Recent days have seen an escalation with thousands of desperate migrants trapped at the EU's eastern border with Belarus in deplorable conditions.
MEPs urgently debated the situation at the European Parliament in Brussels, with the European Commission.
Whilst laying the blame for the crisis squarely at the door of the Belarus regime, Jordi Solé also called for a European response "according to our core values and to international humanitarian law."
Speaking in the debate in the European Parliament, Jordi Solé MEP said:
"Using migrants as a retaliatory weapon and playing with their lives is deplorable.
"Marching them to the EU’s external borders and leaving them stranded is inhumane.
"All this deserves a clear and prompt response from the EU. The dictator in Minsk must know he won’t get away with it.
"But, regretfully, on our side we only see wire fences going up; more and more troops being deployed to watch over the borders; we see pushbacks and we see people cramped together, hardly getting any assistance, freezing in hunger or even dying.
"As much as this is a crisis caused by a vengeful dictator eager to put pressure on us, it is a humanitarian crisis, and it must be addressed according to our core values and to international law. No response based only on security concerns. No EU money for new walls.
"There has to be a European way to make things right when it comes to migration."
