Tourists from certain countries risk losing the opportunity to use the airline of Belarus. The Belarusian Ministry of Aviation has commented on the European Union’s initiative to add a Belarusian carrier under the Belavia flag to the fifth package of sanctions against Minsk after it was accused of involvement in the migration crisis facing the EU countries. Simply put, the Belarusian state airline has been accused of transporting refugees to European borders without the consent of European authorities.
“To address the migration issue, the EU may decide to approve a list of individual countries whose citizens will be banned from traveling on flights operated by airlines operating in Belarus. The Aviation Department, in turn, undertakes to make this list available to the public and to implement this EU decision, “BelTA said in a statement.
According to Schengenvisainfo, in this regard, the authorities of a number of EU countries, especially Lithuania, Latvia, Poland and Estonia, stressed that they want to expand sanctions against Belavia to prohibit EU companies from doing business with the state airline. The German authorities have also announced that they want the lease to end as soon as possible. Recently, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas stressed that the EU will continue to fight all airlines involved in the transportation of refugees to the borders of European countries. Be that as it may, as a result, ordinary tourists can lose a convenient flight.
The EU leadership is considering sanctions against travel companies and full-scale sanctions against Belavia. It will be recalled that back in June, the Council of the European Union imposed an air blockade on Belarus. This decision was made after the forced landing of the Ryanair flight in Minsk, which operated on May 23 from Greece to Lithuania. According to local media, the flight was redirected to arrest journalist Roman Protasevich.
Belarus itself is also facing an increase in the number of migrants trying to cross the border between Poland and Belarus. Earlier, a total of 739 people tried to cross the common border between these countries illegally, which was the largest number of attempts to cross the border in one day. The Polish authorities blamed their Belarusian colleagues for everything.
To cope with the influx of migrants, Lithuanian authorities have said they plan to build a wall on the border with Belarus. This decision was confirmed by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonite. She stressed that more than 1,000 migrants were found on the Lithuanian-Belarusian border.