>Austria’s Interior Minister Nehammer is calling for EU assistance in securing the border with Belarus, while offering Poland support from Vienna. Apparently, Austria can even imagine an operation on the ground.
In view of the rush of thousands of migrants at the Polish border with Belarus, Austria has offered Poland help in border protection. Vienna will “stand by Warsaw in solidarity,” Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told Die Welt. “Just as we secured the EU’s external border in Greece and Lithuania, we are also offering our support to Poland.”
Like German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the CSU, Nehammer also called on the EU Commission to provide more support to the government in Warsaw in protecting the border. “The EU Commission must support Poland in securing the EU’s external border and provide the necessary funds to build a robust border fence.” Offering help with the registration of migrants, on the other hand, would be “the completely wrong signal.” Despite demands from the government in Warsaw, the EU has so far refused to co-finance a fence on the more than 400-kilometer-long border between Belarus and Poland.According to the “Welt” report, Austria had temporarily provided Cobra special forces, drones, armored vehicles, night-vision equipment and thermal imaging technology to Greece in the spring of 2020 and to Lithuania this summer to help secure the border.
The EU accuses Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling migrants from the Middle East into EU states Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in retaliation for Brussels sanctions decisions. SPD Foreign Minister Heiko Maas threatened Lukashenko in the refugee dispute Wednesday night with an expansion and tightening of EU sanctions. Thousands of migrants are currently stranded in low temperatures in the Belarusian-Polish border region.
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>Austria’s Interior Minister Nehammer is calling for EU assistance in securing the border with Belarus, while offering Poland support from Vienna. Apparently, Austria can even imagine an operation on the ground.
In view of the rush of thousands of migrants at the Polish border with Belarus, Austria has offered Poland help in border protection. Vienna will “stand by Warsaw in solidarity,” Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer told Die Welt. “Just as we secured the EU’s external border in Greece and Lithuania, we are also offering our support to Poland.”
Like German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer of the CSU, Nehammer also called on the EU Commission to provide more support to the government in Warsaw in protecting the border. “The EU Commission must support Poland in securing the EU’s external border and provide the necessary funds to build a robust border fence.” Offering help with the registration of migrants, on the other hand, would be “the completely wrong signal.” Despite demands from the government in Warsaw, the EU has so far refused to co-finance a fence on the more than 400-kilometer-long border between Belarus and Poland.According to the “Welt” report, Austria had temporarily provided Cobra special forces, drones, armored vehicles, night-vision equipment and thermal imaging technology to Greece in the spring of 2020 and to Lithuania this summer to help secure the border.
The EU accuses Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko of deliberately smuggling migrants from the Middle East into EU states Latvia, Lithuania and Poland in retaliation for Brussels sanctions decisions. SPD Foreign Minister Heiko Maas threatened Lukashenko in the refugee dispute Wednesday night with an expansion and tightening of EU sanctions. Thousands of migrants are currently stranded in low temperatures in the Belarusian-Polish border region.