The decision to impose new sanctions against Belarus in connection with the escalation of the migration crisis, adopted on Monday by the foreign ministers of the EU countries, and the warnings of Minsk about its readiness to take "the toughest and most extreme measures" in response, inexorably bring the most serious conflict in relations between East and West in autumn 2021 years to the boiling point.

The chaos on the border of Belarus with Poland, caused by the attempts of refugees living in the open pre-winter sky from hot spots at any cost before the cold weather to break into a warm European house, is accompanied by a political Brownian movement.

It is more and more difficult to see in him an attempt to find a prompt, as required by the situation, a meaningful and worthy solution to the problem, which would allow everyone to save face, and not try to shift responsibility and blame onto each other.

It is better not to read news from the European Union on the migration crisis and contradictory statements pouring out like peas from a sack with holes in them these days.

The more you read them, the less you understand where all this is heading.

In the conditions of the attempts, which are beyond the bounds of morality and common sense, attempts to inscribe Russia into the scenario of the migration crisis, and as almost the main respondent, the only thing that everyone agrees on is the recognition that the crisis is artificial.

Everyone understands that this is not at all the situation when there are some objective circumstances of force majeure that do not allow solving the problem with the help of the existing international mechanisms.

Opponents of Alexander Lukashenko and those on the other side of the barricades say that this is a man-made crisis.

But whose hand has worked here, since this is a man-made crisis - whether we are talking about the "hand of Minsk", the "hand of Moscow" or the "hand of Brussels" - opinions differ radically.

According to British Foreign Minister Elizabeth Truss, which she outlined in her article in The Sunday Telegraph, the Belarusian president is using migrants "as pawns in an attempt to create instability and cling to power."

It is clear that the unsuccessful attempt to secure the departure of Alexander Lukashenko after last year's presidential elections and the finally deflated project to promote the alternative president, Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, who is not seen or heard today, remain a deep thorn in the West.

This is and will be constantly reminded, as illustrated by the article by Elizabeth Truss.

It is also clear that the Belarusian side categorically denies the accusations.

In turn, on behalf of the “hand of Moscow” that does not exist in this story, Russian President Vladimir Putin calmly recalled in an interview with the Russia 1 TV channel about the chains of transporting migrants to the EU that exist on the territory of the European Union.

“Let the law enforcement agencies, the special services work on them, if they violate something,” Vladimir Putin suggested.

Although Moscow does not take this crisis in any way, its hand can help to resolve it.

“We are ready to contribute to this in every possible way, if, of course, something depends on us here,” said Vladimir Putin.

Let's try to look at the migration crisis calmly, as much as possible in a situation where emotions are difficult to contain.

Let's try to understand its reasons and the cost of the issue.

So, there are several thousand people who are on the territory of Belarus and want to get to Germany - not terrorists, not criminals, not illegal immigrants.

All of them did not come in boats, without documents, hoping for a lucky break and hoping that the boat would not sink and would take pity on the other side and pick it up.

All of them arrived in Minsk legally - by flights from Istanbul, Dubai or Yerevan, have legal refugee documents and still firmly believe in humanitarian values ​​and the idea of ​​a common European home.

Houses of open doors, where life and human rights remain the highest values, so you really want to get into this house after the nightmare experienced at home (what happened in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan is well known).

These people on the border of Belarus with Poland are not hundreds or tens of thousands - only a few thousand people.

The costs of solving the problem would be trifling - some several million euros for the entire European Union, the turnover of a shopping center.

Enter into a dialogue with Minsk and find a solution, as we found a solution with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan several years ago.

And this despite the fact that in the case of Ankara it was a question of a crisis, incomparable in scale with what is happening on the Belarusian-Polish border.

No matter how you treat President Lukashenko, calling him a dictator, an autocrat, an illegitimate president, this is not about him at all.

We are talking about the crumbling reputation of the European Union in front of everyone, the idea of ​​its openness to those who really suffer, and in general about discrediting the idea of ​​a common European home and the European dream.

That is, we are talking about the collapse of the project in which the main integrator of the EU has invested its political capital, now it is already.

O.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who stimulated the influx of millions of refugees in 2015.

The first decades of the XXI century in the countries of the Old World passed under the sign of reasoning that the European Union is not just a union of the states of old and new Europe, not just a world center of economic power comparable to the United States, but also a kind of European community of values.

At a certain moment, the ideologists of a common European home saw in a large European project a certain ideological potential that exceeded the potential of the great American dream, which was pretty devalued by that time.

While the United States relied on military power and the power of money, presenting globalization primarily as a struggle for markets and a redistribution of spheres of influence, the European Union, on the contrary, focused on soft power and humanitarian values.

Without denying global competition, European politicians, diplomats, experts for many years emphasized that, they say, the European Union is something more than just a union of nearly three dozen European countries, fighting together for the markets for BMW cars or French perfumes.

Greater attention to humanitarian issues, protection of human rights, rejection of military force as a political argument, a socially oriented market, a culture of compromise, ramified legislation that allows society to avoid shocks - these are the main components of the European project, which was seen by many as an alternative to the American project of freedom and extreme individualism. ...

Judging by the fact that migrants in Belarus are determined to break through to Germany at any cost, the idea of ​​a European home turned out to be very attractive.

They believed in it and, perhaps, still continue to believe by inertia.

However, this migration crisis in autumn 2021 clarified a lot and put a lot in its place.

Formally, the European dream, like the idea of ​​a European family, has not been canceled.

In principle, it is impossible to cancel it.

But this is the kind of matter that today is more comfortable to discuss somewhere at a round table organized by a respectable foundation in a five-star hotel or congress center in Berlin, Brussels or Paris - with coffee breaks, delicious croissants and cozy armchairs.

Away from what happens to the refugees in the cold Belarusian forests.

The European dream, probably, can continue to live in its comfort zone, but it does not withstand the crash test and extreme conditions.

In addition, President Lukashenko is not becoming its main gravedigger in the migration crisis.

It is being killed by the political situation, the inertia of the Brussels bureaucracy, national egoism and ambitions of the EU states, which only claim to be a “European family”.

As a result, it turns out that there are a thousand and one reasons when it is easier for the European Union to impose sanctions against Minsk than to solve the problem and get rid of this European shame.

So the common European house turns into a common European madhouse, which they want to fence off with a wall and enclose with barbed wire.

The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.