Will the EU strike Belarus for sending balloons into Lithuanian airspace?
The European Union has warned Belarus against releasing additional weather balloons into the airspace of EU countries (including Lithuania). How might the Union respond to further Belarusian hybrid actions?
A few days ago, weather balloons disrupted air traffic in Lithuanian airspace. The European Union addressed the issue and issued a statement condemning Minsk’s actions.
“The incursion of meteorological balloons from Belarus into Lithuanian airspace, which disrupted hundreds of flights and caused significant losses to Lithuanian airports and thousands of travelers, threatens to destabilize an EU member state and intimidate European citizens through direct threats to civil aviation” - we can read in the document published on Wednesday.
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How is the EU responding to the above-described actions of the Minsk regime (referred to in the statement as “hybrid”)? “We call on the Belarusian regime to immediately take effective measures to control its airspace, state border, and territory, and to combat and prevent the organized criminal activity emerging within its borders” - EU officials stated, pointing to the possibility of imposing additional sanctions on Belarus.
Interestingly, the published version differs from the original draft, which, according to Hungary, was too harsh on Alyaksandr Lukashenka. As reported by Politico, the Hungarian side, in exchange for supporting the statement (which required the consent of all 27 member states), demanded the removal of a passage stating that the Belarusian regime “is directly complicit (…)” in the recent incidents.
