Lithuania asks EU for funds to tighten border controls with Belarus

March 30, BPN. Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė asked Ylva Johansson, the EU commissioner for home affairs, to consider funding a 462 km-long patrol trail at the border to Belarus, the Lithuanian Interior Ministry says.

The €60 million project would step up border security and help respond to a wide range of threats, LRT reported citing the official.

Lithuania also plans to spend €40 million to install border surveillance systems covering 322 km of its shared border with Belarus by 2027.

In 2022, Lithuania completed a physical barrier to protect 502 km of its 679-km border with Belarus. The Lithuanian border authorities reported 467 attempts by Belarusian officers and illegal migrants to damage the border fence, LRT said.

The construction of the fence was one of the measures to resolve the migration crisis on the Belarus-EU border which dates back to the spring of 2021. It escalated in November 2021 when thousands of migrants set up a camp near the Polish border. The Baltic states and Poland accused Belarusian authorities of creating the trouble, while the latter blamed it on the West.