The situation in the migrant crisis on the EU’s eastern external border with Belarus has eased, according to EU Home Affairs Commissioner, Ylva Johansson.
“Now we have clear de-escalation of the situation,’’ Johansson said at a conference in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on Friday.
Lukashenko seems to have lost his interest in using the migrants in an instrumentalised way.
“Of course, we do not know, because we have to stay vigilant.’’
For months, thousands of migrants have been trying to cross the EU’s external borders from Belarus to Poland or the Baltic states.
The EU accuses Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately flying people from crisis regions such as Iraq or Afghanistan to Minsk in order to smuggle them into the EU.
Lithuania was particularly affected by this in the beginning.
“The situation was very different then.
“We were really in a crisis. We saw this aggression from Lukashenko,’’ Johansson said, referring to her last visit to Lithuania in August 2021.
The EU commissioner praised the Baltic state and her host, Interior Minister, Agne Bilotaite, for their handling of the crisis.
“I think that you have acted very well to deal with this very difficult situation.’’
(NAN)
