Germany: Merkel talks additional sanctions against Belarus in joint press briefing with Polish PM

У вашего броузера проблема в совместимости с HTML5

Follow us on Telegram:
https://t.me/s/ruptlynews

Mandatory credit: Bundesregierung

The acting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki underlined the need for further sanctions against the government of Belarus in the light of the ongoing migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border, in a joint press briefing in Berlin on Thursday.
“I have expressed to the Polish Prime Minister my full solidarity on behalf of Germany. Our Interior Ministers [Horst] Seehofer and we are of the common understanding that this situation resulted from the fact that Belarus attracted migrants to Belarus in a sense of a hybrid attack looking for destabilisation and weakening not only of Poland but of all the European Union,” said Angela Merkel.

“Here are also sanctions against Lukashenko on the program, additional sanctions, if there is no visible progress to report, and this development continues this way. We have not reached yet the [de-escalation] that Germany and Poland are longing for,” she added.

“There must be additional sanctions to be planned, among them trade sanctions. Poland has a border with Belarus and the trade of goods is taking place all the time, but we keep on recalling that this exchange of goods could be halted if there was an escalation of this conflict,” suggested Morawiecki. “We are defending the exterior border of the European Union, and along with them Germany from this great wave of migrants,” said the Polish Prime Minister.

Morawiecki could be among the last visitors of the acting Chancellor Merkel. He would, later on, meet Chancellor-designate Olaf Scholz.

—-

SOT, Angela Merkel, Acting Chancellor (German): “I have expressed to the Polish Prime Minister my full solidarity on behalf of Germany. Our Interior Ministers [Horst] Seehofer, and we are of the common understanding that this situation resulted from the fact that Belarus attracted migrants to Belarus in a sense of a hybrid attack looking for a destabilisation and weakening not only of Poland, but of all the European Union.”

SOT, Angela Merkel, Acting Chancellor (German): “Here it goes firstly, and for this I spoke to the International Organisation for Migration [IOM] and the UNHCR to provide to the people in Belarus humanely, and possibly to return them to their countries of origin. We know, especially with the Kurds, that under the pretense of false promises people were directed to Belarus.”

SOT, Angela Merkel, Acting German Chancellor (German): “I regretted that neither the Russian president [Vladimir Putin] nor the Russian Foreign Minister [Sergei Lavrov] were not ready to organise for the end of my mandate another political encounter within the Normandy Format. That would have a positive signal that all sides were interested in a solution of the topic of Ukraine. Sadly, this did not happen.”

SOT, Angela Merkel, Acting Chancellor (German): “Here are also sanctions against Lukashenko on the program, additional sanctions, if there is no visible progress to report, and this development continues this way. We have not reached yet the [de-escalation] that Germany and Poland are longing for.”

SOT, Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland (Polish): “The first crisis is the one at the Polish-Belarusian border and we are defending the exterior border of the European Union, and along with them Germany from this great wave of migrants. Lukaeshenko tried to test this border. He invited the first “migrants”, but he misused them as human shields, as an element in his policy to create a political crisis, to destabilise the European Union through this border.”

SOT, Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland (Polish): “In this escalation ladder more steps have to be planned, with the hope that we shall not ascend but descend the ladder. There must be additional sanctions to be planned, among them trade sanctions. Poland has a border with Belarus and the trade of goods is taking place all the time, but we keep on recalling that this exchange of goods could be halted, if there was an escalation of this conflict.”

SOT, Mateusz Morawiecki, Prime Minister of Poland (Polish): “Belarus has a population that is innocent, that is under political pressure, we have political prisoners there, we have political assassinations there in Belarus. We call for the release of these detainees, and on the other side the real politics shows that there is a dictator there that wants to destabilise that part of Europe. And Mr Borrell and Mr Charles Michel, I think what they are doing is indeed right.”

#Germany #Berlin #Merkel #Belarus

Video ID: 20211125-043

Video on Demand: https://ruptly.tv/videos/20211125-043
Contact: [email protected]

Twitter: http://twitter.com/Ruptly
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Ruptly