BERLIN, November 11. /TASS/. The refugee crisis on the border between Poland and Belarus is a complex challenge for Europe, one the European Union was somewhat unprepared to face, German political analyst Alexander Rahr said in an interview with TASS.
"It is indeed a complicated situation. This issue came as a complete surprise to the EU. No one expected refugees would be coming from the east, and not from the south," Rahr said. According to him, Belarus is supposedly "weaponizing refugees against the European Union." "The question for Brussels is how to respond to Minsk’s actions. I think a new round of sanctions is in order," Rahr added.
"The EU is, in a way, twiddling its thumbs here for the moment, but I think, the reason for this is that they have no idea what they are exactly supposed to do in this situation," the analyst said.
Asked to comment on the impact of the crisis on Germany’s domestic politics, Rahr pointed out that the country’s various parties have different attitudes towards migration. For instance, the Social Democrats and the Green Party, both likely to be part of the next ruling coalition, condemned Poland for what they said was harsh treatment of the refugees. "Conversely, the CDU/CSU bloc (the Christian Democratic coalition which will now be in the opposition — TASS) is manifesting itself as a conservative movement, feeling they can boost their profile once again," the analyst said.
The migrant crisis on Belarus’ border with Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland, which has been growing since the start of the year, exploded on November 8, when several thousand people amassed on the Belarusian side of the border fence with Poland, refusing to leave the area. Some EU countries accused Minsk of deliberately exacerbating the crisis, calling for sanctions against the Belarusian government. The country’s president Alexander Lukashenko blamed the predicament on Western countries, since it had been precisely their actions that had forced these people to flee their war-ravaged homelands.