EU monitoring border with Belarus, will do everything to protect it - Borrell's representative

BRUSSELS. Sept 28 (Interfax) - Migration pressure from Belarus on the EU border is part of hybrid attacks by Minsk, and the European Union will protect it, Peter Stano, spokesperson for High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and European Commission Vice President Josep Borrell, has said.

Belarus was trying "to attack the European Union through hybrid threats [...] to create undue pressure on the external borders of the European Union," he said. "Of course, we continue to watch how the [Minsk] regime is behaving on this side, what they are doing on borders and how they are trying to misuse people again as means of hybrid threat creating pressure on our borders," Stano told a briefing in Brussels on Thursday.

He was responding to a question about EU leaders' concerns over the situation on the Polish-Belarusian border, which illegal migrants continue trying to illegally enter the EU through. European media has repeatedly reported aggressive behavior by some of them towards Polish border guards.

"This is the outside border of the European Union. And the European Union will do everything we can to protect this border," Stano said.

It was reported recently that Germany intends to increase control measures on its borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser said in an interview with Die Welt that the German authorities are considering the option of installing permanent control posts on the borders with Poland and the Czech Republic. There are no plans to close the border, and only the police presence at border crossings will be reinforced, she said. In addition, selective inspections may become more frequent.

Warsaw does not see a need for this. Polish Deputy Interior Minister Maciej Wonsik said in an interview with PAP on September 27 that Poland had stopped illegal migration traffic from Belarus.