Merkel expresses ‘full solidarity’ with Poland over Belarus amid border migration crisis

Germany’s outgoing Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday expressed her “full solidarity” with Poland and accused Minsk of carrying out a “hybrid attack” by luring migrants on the tense EU nation border. Condemning Belarusian authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko for his efforts of destabilizing both Poland and the European Union as a whole, Germany’s Merkel said that while she lays out “full solidary with Poland on the one hand, I want to of course express very clearly that this is an issue between the European Union and Belarus, and that’s why everything that happens bilaterally needs to be coordinated,” according to Associated Press. 

Further, at the meeting in Berlin with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Merkel asserted that the EU would impose additional sanctions on Belarus “if no progress is seen.” Merkel’s remarks were seen as a response to the Polish criticism, she in turn asserted that Belarus’ close ally Russia must put pressure on Minsk to resolve this issue. This was in line with Morawiecki’s remarks made earlier wherein he told reporters that a “cordial request (to Putin) to exert influence on the situation in Belarus” will be helpful.

Morawiecki had also suggested that EU sanctions on the Belarusian regime would prompt those actions. Meanwhile propounding that a four-way talk between Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France may have solved some issues, Merkel said,  “I greatly regretted that neither the Russian president nor the Russian foreign minister was prepared to hold one more high-level meeting under the Normandy format before the end of my time in office,” Associated Press reported. She also regretted that such talks were not held to resolve tensions between Ukraine and its neighbour Russia. 

“This would have been a good signal that all sides are interested in a solution to the Ukraine issue,” Merkel was quoted saying by Associated Press. “This, sadly, didn’t happen.”

Border crisis is Belarus' 'greatest' bid to destabilize Europe in 30 years: Polish PM

  Poland has repeatedly accused Belarus of using the migrants as a 'political bargaining chip' and 'weaponry' against the bloc with the "back-room support" of Russian President Putin. Condemning the spillover of the migrant at the border unfolding a full-fledged crisis, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki earlier lambasted Belarus's authoritarian leader Lukashenko of “gangster-style abuse” alleging that he allured the refugees with the false promise of easy entry to the EU, European press reported.  The refugee cataclysm has been orchestrated by Minsk, as at least 2,000 migrants are now stranded at the Belarusian border with Poland with nowhere to go, the Polish leader asserted. "Upon arrival, they are being pushed to the border and forced to make an illegal entry into the European Union," Commission spokesman Peter Stano, meanwhile, told the ground reporters for the British Broadcasting Corp.