Belarusian border crisis will only add to tensions within Europe

Alexander Lukashenko’s cruel and crude attempt to create sanctions leverage by trapping refugees next to Poland is set to have wider repercussions however it ends, writes Sean O’Grady

Refugees camped in the Grodno region of Belarus, next to the border with Poland (AP)

The EU and the US have accused Belarus of creating a migrant crisis on the Polish border with the deliberate aim of destabilising its neighbour, in particular, and the European Union as a whole. In the words of a resolution agreed by the western powers on the UN Security Council, the dictatorial government of Alexander Lukashenko is responsible for “the orchestrated instrumentalisation of human beings whose lives and wellbeing have been put in danger for political purposes by Belarus with the objective of destabilising neighbouring countries and the European Union’s external border and diverting attention away from its own increasing human rights violations”.

They are quite right, and the whole strategy is as cruel and crude as it looks. The refugees have, basically, been flown into Minsk or otherwise helped to travel to Belarus, then transported to the forested border with Poland, and left to fend for themselves while trying to find a route into the EU. They are often Kurds from Iraq, the victims of a change in US policy and the loss of their homeland. They are met with a hostile reception from the Polish border guards, but they are not allowed to leave the area by the Belarusians. So they are trapped, cold, wet, hungry and desperate.

The situation has caused much internal distress in Poland, Lithuania and Estonia, the three EU and Nato members most immediately affected. Poland, especially, has seen nationalist demonstrations, in a country that has already shown a marked reluctance to engage in taking any EU-determined quota of refugees who have crossed the Mediterranean. That in itself has caused friction with Brussels, and that, in turn, has added to tensions between the EU and the southern EU states with the largest numbers of migrants arriving – Italy, Malta and Greece.

In due course, as the migrants on the Belarus border find their way through the barbed wire and the guards, subsequently arrive in Germany and at French ports and then, very possibly, cross the Channel to the UK, the situation will fuel more internal and international rows. Among other things, for example, it may add to the rising levels of mistrust and resentment between Britain and France.

Such divisions between supposed western allies also suits Russia, which is tacitly supporting the Belarusian government in its inhumane policies. Minsk has already talked about escalating the crisis by cutting off gas supplies to Poland and Germany if the EU dares to impose further sanctions on Belarus. Indeed, Lukashenko won’t stop his deadly games until the EU lifts the travel and economic sanctions imposed last year after he stole the election.

Where will it end? There is a partial precedent in the way Turkey used the Syrian refugee crisis five years ago as leverage to get the EU to offer aid and other benefits in return for Ankara curbing the flow of migrants towards Greece, Bulgaria and on towards Germany. All that happened was that people traffickers switched their transport routes to Libya and elsewhere in north Africa, aiming for Italy or Malta. However, because much of the Belarusian crisis has been manufactured by Lukashenko, a deal could have a more lasting, practical effect. It would, though, mark a significant failure of EU and western diplomacy.

The one thing we can be confident about in the coming months is that the weather will worsen, and more refugees will perish in their long and dangerous journey from the Middle East or Africa to Europe. It will serve to confirm Lukashenko’s ruthless brutality, and the permanence of the refugee crisis, but also the powerlessness of the west.