Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Paweł Jabłoński speaks of inevitable escalation, following the multiplication of refugees massing on the border with Belarus. “We are close to a hybrid war, the weapon of which is immigration that is not genuine but organized by Minsk to pursue the European Union,” he says on the phone from Warsaw. A new and very ancient war, the front line of which is marked by the race with its head down by an infantry with a lost gaze that advances, is rejected, tries again.
Minister, how are you dealing with the situation?
“This is for us the worst threat of the last thirty years, the most serious since the end of Communism. And I fear that in the next few days we will see an escalation. We have assembled the border guard, the police and the army. We currently count on 15,000 men but we are ready to send reinforcements. Already in the next few months, we will work to make the barrier that we raised two months ago permanent ».
Frontex has proposed to patrol and offers of help have also arrived from Brussels. However, the impression was that Poland preferred to go it alone. Because?
“It’s a wrong impression. On the organizational level we have the men to defend ourselves. What is needed by the European Commission and the Council, on the other hand, is political coordination to respond to Minsk, starting with sanctions. The only language that Lukashėnko understands. The regime, behind which Putin is, acts in retaliation, because after the last sham elections, Poland was among the first countries to react. The sanctions, to which he is already subjected, are hitting the Belarusian economy heavily: the European Union must insist, Lukashenko is weaker day by day ”.
In between there are men, women, families, bargaining chips, as in the Mediterranean, as in Turkey.
«The Turkish case is different. Erdogan understood that he could benefit from managing a natural migration, here we are faced with artificial flows driven by Lukashenko and Moscow. There are Afghans who are not fleeing the return of the Taliban, but who have been refugees somewhere for years already. It is a challenge that concerns the whole of the EU. The migrants tell our police that they don’t want to stay in Poland, they want Germany, Holland, Europe ”.
They say you beat them.
“It is very unlikely. We reject them. When the Polish police intercept those who manage to pass, they stop them and transfer them to a detention center pending trial. Where they are beaten and tortured is instead in Belarus, it happens earlier ».
It will never pass, but European Council President Charles Michel has proposed an EU-funded wall. Would you accept it?
“Many European politicians now see what they did not see 6 years ago, when the wind of hospitality was blowing. Then there was the crisis, the mood changed. It is now clear that welcoming everyone is impossible: it is right instead to take regular migrants. As Poles we feel the responsibility to protect the European borders, Schengen. As for building a wall, we can finance ourselves, our economy is fine: what is needed is to show European compactness in the political response ”.
What would you say to Italy which is facing the Mediterranean alone – also because of the Polish hostility to redistribution – and which today sees the EU mobilizing on the Belarusian border?
«Refugees can be redistributed, but we can also work on the repatriation of irregular migrants, which does not mean economic migrants willing to work and integrate. I say this because we were too, and we have suffered discrimination. Poland has welcomed many Afghans in recent weeks. And every year it welcomes many people from the east, Moldovans, Ukrainians, 226 thousand people in 2019. The others do not, for the illegal immigrants who feed the ghettos, redistribution is not needed, but repatriation “.
Do you agree with the idea of a common European defense?
«We are not against it. But let’s start by investing more in defense, starting with cybersecurity. As a model, however, we prefer the NATO one, together but each member state with its own budget: each army defends its own country “.