EU’s vulnerability regarding the ‘instrumentalisation’ of migration movements : case study on the EU-Belarus 2021

Abstract

In November 2021 the Polish authorities had registered over 30 000 illegal border-crossing attempts at the Belarussian border since the beginning of the year. Although this number also takes into account people making multiple attempts to cross, still this number is unprecedent and unexpected as the Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland border with Belarus, is not usually used as a migration door toward the European Union (EU). This new migration flow has been engineered by Belarus’ President Alexander Lukashenko in reaction to the EU’ sanctions against his authoritarian regime. The use of hybrid threats like the instrumentalisation of populations for blackmail purpose is increasing, and EU’s vulnerability toward this new coercive trend with it. This study analyses what makes EU vulnerable to ‘coercive engineered migration’, and what are the solutions to face and overcome this phenomenon.