Debate on the escalating humanitarian crisis on the EU Belarus border in particular in Poland. Opening statements by Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of a stronger Europe in the World. This transcription is a result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Brussels

statement

plenary session

EU - Belarus (T)

migration and refugees in Europe (T)

BORRELL FONTELLES, Josep (PSE, ES, EC)

The escalating humanitarian crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border: opening statements by Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, Thank you, Madam president, and sorry for being late, but they've been I've been called with a short notice. And I had to finish some previous agenda items before being able to free myself. I take this call of the Parliament. Everybody has seen the images of groups of people, let's call them migrants, escorted by armed Belarusian security forces towards the borders of the European Union member states, with the aim to force irregular entries.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, And these images are certainly shocking and the situation can become worst, and the images can be still more shocking. It's clear that the Belarusian authorities are using human beings as a tool for political purposes. They have given them false expectations and put them in a situation of extreme vulnerability.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, This summer, it started from Iraq. Iraqi people mainly coming from Kurdistan were told that the doors of Europe were open in the Belarussian border and transported from Baghdad to Minsk and to Minsk to the border of Poland and Lithuania.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, I personally intervened with Foreign Affairs Minister of Iraq, explaining what was happening on the risk that their people were facing, and I have to recognise that the Iraqi authorities answered it correctly, suspending the flights from Baghdad to Minsk. And at the end of the summer, the situation looked under control.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, But in October, things became again at a larger scale, because even if the Iraqis airways were still not flying, some of those small private companies were flying from Baghdad and suddenly from many other airports in the Middle East. Many other airports from the Middle East has been used as a habit to send people from Syria, from Iraq or Afghanistan, to Belarus and from there to the European borders.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, We have been engaged in diplomatic outreach, alerting to countries of origin and transit about this situation and asking them for cooperation in stopping this flow. To date, the External Action Service has been outreaching with 13 relevant partner countries, as I said, they personally discussed this issue with Iraqi authorities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, And they took concrete measures, were spending that in flies and closing 2 Honorary Belarusian consulate in the country. But now our reach out has to be much more extended because it is not a point to point travel with a single or a couple of actors, but is a whole network of destination with transit countries involving a lot of airlines and a lot of people.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, We continue our diplomatic reach out and the Vice-President Schinas will personally, because I cannot go and I cannot afford to travel to all these places just coming from Latin America and this weekend we have the Peace Paris Conference, but President von der Leyen charged Commissioner Schinas to go to Abu Dhabi, to Beirut, Baghdad and Erbil in the coming days.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, There are many other places, and later also to Ankara to specifically discuss this crisis, which is putting European Union borders under pressure and the costs of human suffering and human lives. We are also monitoring potential new routes and possible new flight connections, as well as developments in more than 20 countries where our delegations are asked to report.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, I also ask what delegations to embark in a wide efforts of information to the people, explaining to the people on these countries that the promises of a free entry to Europe are fake. That they are being cheated, they're being stolen, they're being asking to pay $6000-7000 for travel that goes nowhere.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, The first thing to do is to try to inform these people, these potential victims of the smugglers, to tell them the truth. Don't go. Don't believe this. People don't spend your money. Don't put your life at risk. Don't do that. Our delegation will do whatever they can in order to widespread this information.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, But the desperation of so many people is so big that maybe don't care, and they are ready to take the risk. But then in our case, is our responsibility to try to inform them as much as we can. Also, our delegation remains, because we still have, and will get in touch with the Russian authorities.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, Although I suppose there is nothing to explain to them, because they know perfectly what they are doing. What they are doing? They are using migrants as an instrument accompanied by a wide spread of disinformation campaign to put pressure in our borders and create a humanitarian crisis. We are monitoring this information narrative, exposing and debunking them.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, We do whatever, again, in order to inform them what is about. In Iraq, it work, but now people are flying from the airports very close to the Syrian refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. Now they take the people away from place where people are. From Jordan and Lebanon, a lot of charters are bringing these people to Minsk.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, To address this situation, we have to see which is the scope of the existing sanctions regime on Belarus and to spend it. We are studying how to spend it, in order to adopt a new - it will be the fifth one - a new package of sanctions, which will include those responsible for contributing to the ongoing crisis in our external borders.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, The European Council meeting on October gave us a clear mandate in this regard. Foreign Affairs Ministers will deal with this issue next Monday. I want to say also that this crisis should not distract our attention from what's behind the current escalation of the European Union border.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, The Lukashenko regime is a regime that is oppressing its own people, disregarding their fundamental freedoms and perpetrating human rights violations. Systematically silencing all remaining independent voices in the country, free media, human rights defenders and civil society at large. Since last August, more than 35000 people have been arrested.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, There are more that we know 830 political prisoners and more than 270 NGOs dissolved. Representative of the opposition and journalists have been sentenced to long prison sentences in closed trials. We must continue to be very active in this respect because the problem is Lukashenko regime.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, This is the problem, and we have to go to the root of the problem, a regime that lacks any kind of respect for human dignity and human life. We have to promote international accountability mechanism. We are thinking on mobilising the United Nations framework to face this new crisis created by Lukashenko regime.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, On the other hand, this is a humanitarian crisis. It has to be dealt with it as it is, and I am sorry to say that today the organisations that face humanitarian crisis cannot reach these people from neither side of the border. Nor from the European inside, not from the Belarusian side. Certainly, these people are in the Belarusian side, and the first one to allow free passage is the Belarusian regime, which until now has been impossible.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, I just have been talking with Filippo Grandi and commented with him the situation, which is completely unaffordable because, you know, it's winter and you can imagine what can happen if thousands of people have to stay during low temperatures in the fields, no water, no food, no heating.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, It doesn't happen thousands of kilometres away from us. It's happening just on the other side of the border. So the first thing that we have to do is to get from the Belarusian government that the organisation that can provide humanitarian help can reach these people.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, You know that to avoid images that can provoke big trouble amongst us. The second thing is to open a humanitarian corridor for these people coming back. They cannot go into the European union border by forcing the borders. But they cannot stay there forever. They need humanitarian help.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, They need a way out of the situation where they Belarussian authorities have put them because they were personally aware of what they were doing. Come they complain, they will bring you to the border. I will push you through the border and they will not let you go back. And they start shooting in the air, in order to avoid these people going backwards.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, So humanitarian corridor has to be opened in order to put these people back. And we have to get agreements with the origin countries for a safe return. But this is the migration part of the problem, with worries me bothers all of us is first humanitarian situation of these people, and secondly the grief geopolitical situation in which we are embarking in our relationship with Lukashenko regime.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, It's clear that it is an answer to our sanction. You sanction me. I will create trouble still in if they have to put at risk people to create troubles, they will do. And this is something completely unacceptable and we have to mobilise all our resources in order to face the situation from any point to a real humanitarian, geopolitical and migration point of view.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, I have reports from intelligence about the situation there. It has becoming worst and worst since the end of October. Istanbul remains one of the main transit hubs for the migrants, from Dubai, from Yerevan, from Damascus, from Jordan, from Lebanon, big planes at the beginning, there were small charters with 400 people on board.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, And these people explained their story: "I've been proposed by travel agencies a nice holiday in Belarus and I will provide me the way to go to Europe. It cost six thousand seven thousand dollars, but I want to take the chance". Nobody told them which where the real destinations. This is a severe crisis.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, It's not a war, but it's an attack, is a weaponization of human beings. Of the weakest human beings. The desperation of the people looking for a better life makes some inhuman dictator to use them as arms that be thrown against the wall. And I am happy to have the opportunity to talk to the European Parliament today, in order to make you aware of what's happening.

SOUNDBITE (English), Josep BORRELL FONTELLES, HR/VP of the European Union, We have to do whatever we can in order to provide humanitarian assistance to these people. I hope that Filippo Grandi will be able to push the Belarusian government. We will do also and then we have to look for a way out, and then we have to continue fighting with a regime that is able to do this kind of inhuman behaviour. Thank you.