Media: Latvia Will Not Close Its Border With Belarus

A Baltic country will station NATO forces there.

The Latvian government will not close the only operating border crossing on the Latvian-Belarusian border, “Paternieki” (“Grigorovshchina” on the Belarusian side), as proposed by the country’s Ministry of the Interior. However, to combat irregular migration during the Baltic Trust 26 exercises, NATO allied military forces will be deployed near the border, according to LSM.

Latvian Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs stated that in August, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defense will take significant preventive measures to limit the flow of irregular migrants as much as possible at the border, which also serves as the European Union’s external border.

According to LSM, the prime minister emphasized that, to ensure national security, the government is considering all possible options for addressing the problem of illegal migration. In other words, closing “Paternieki” is one of the options, although the government is not currently endorsing it, “because the flow of illegal migration is not occurring at a specific border crossing point, but outside of it.”

When asked to what extent economic considerations influence the decision not to close “Paternieki” for the time being, the prime minister replied that security is the top priority.

Interior Minister Jānis Dombrova, who had proposed the previous day to completely close the border with Belarus, stated that suspending operations at a specific border crossing is one of the possible courses of action.

“This issue is not currently on the agenda, but it is one of several options we can pursue,” Dombrova added.

Speaking about the circumstances under which the government might revisit this issue, the minister noted that similar decisions had been made in other countries when problems at border control points escalated. So, in such a situation, he said, a decision to close a border crossing could be made quickly.
As a reminder, on the evening of July 31, it was reported that Latvia had closed its border with Belarus “for technical reasons.”

“The border between Latvia and Belarus is closed for technical reasons. We recommend that those who have not yet returned to Latvia use alternative routes,” read a statement from the country’s interior minister.

The day before, Dombrova had urged his compatriots to cancel any planned trips to Belarus or to return home if they were already there.

A warning has been posted on the Latvian Border Guard Service’s website stating that technical malfunctions are affecting information systems, border control is currently impossible, and “the causes and possible timeline for resolving the issues are not yet clear.”

It should be noted that Latvia is one of the routes used by irregular migrants who are attempting to cross from Belarus into the European Union. Since the beginning of the year, the illegal entry of more than 9,100 people has been prevented. Typically, dozens of violators storm the border daily. The figures for Lithuania and Poland regarding those stopped at the border are an order of magnitude lower.

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