August 31, Pozirk. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has announced an increase in funding for the protection of the European Union’s eastern borders, Polish media report.
She made this statement while visiting the section of the Polish-Belarusian border near Krynki in the Podlaskie voivodeship together with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Both politicians spoke to journalists in front of the Polish border fence, despite border guards’ advice to postpone the event after armed Belarusian soldiers were spotted nearby.
“I am here today to express Europe’s full solidarity with Poland as a frontline state,” the European Commission’s press office quoted von der Leyen as saying. “For years now, you and the Polish people have been facing deliberate and cynical hybrid attacks. . . Europe stands with you in all possible ways. . . We are tripling the investment in migration and border management and protection.”
Member states with a direct border with Russia and Belarus will receive additional European funding as Europe’s borders are a shared responsibility, the politician stressed.
“We have to keep the sense of urgency because we know that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has and will not change. . . We know by experience he can only be kept in check through strong deterrence,” von der Leyen added.
Tusk described the migration crisis ongoing at the EU borders with Belarus since 2021 as a hybrid war, noting that Minsk and Moscow organized groups of people to physically attack the Polish and European borders.
The flow of people desperate to get to the EU surged in spring 2021 after Alaksandar Łukašenka, angered by EU sanctions, had indicated that Minsk would not prevent asylum seekers from Africa and Asia from using Belarus as a route to the EU.
