Saxony's Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) sees fortified border installations as an effective means of getting a grip on the influx of refugees on the EU's external border with Belarus.
"We need fences and we probably also need walls," said Kretschmer on Tuesday in Brussels.
Even if it was so bitter and didn't make for nice pictures.
"Nobody is interested in walls, but now the point is that the European Union proves that it can defend itself."
Kretschmer had previously spoken to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. It should also have been about the refugees who come to Germany via Belarus and Poland. The Belarusian President Alexandr Lukashenko is playing a perfidious game. “I would like this European Union to be strong now and straighten its back. We mustn't allow ourselves to be blackmailed by such a dictator. "
Lithuania, Latvia and especially Poland should get all the support they need. “Only when the border there is tight and people can no longer be smuggled in will this phenomenon come to an end.” The crisis must be tackled by its roots. On the one hand, it is about starting negotiations with the countries of origin. On the other hand, sanctions should be issued against airlines that fly refugees to Belarus. Thirdly, one needs “physical borders” that will be dismantled again when a democracy is established in Belarus.
In addition, they must be turned back and deported even in winter.
There is no question of treating people coming to Europe properly.
But it is important to work with the same intensity to bring them back to their countries of origin.
Word should get around there not to rely on Lukashenko and not to give his money to smugglers.
In response to Western sanctions, the Belarusian ruler Alexandr Lukashenko announced in the spring that he would no longer stop migrants en route to the European Union.
The number of irregular border crossings at the EU's external borders with Belarus and at the German-Polish border has increased since then.