Poland’s Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz was speaking as he and his Lithuanian opposite number, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, visited the Padvarionys border crossing in southwestern Lithuania, on the border with Belarus.
“Being together in the EU, in NATO, is a big matter. We are preparing for the [75th] anniversary [NATO] summit in Washington,” Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
He added that Poland and Lithuania would jointly appeal to the EU at its next summit in Brussels to treat the protection of the two nations’ borders as an issue for the entire bloc, “because it is [an EU matter] in essence.”
They also intend to raise the issue at the NATO summit in Washington between July 9 and July 11.
While the United States, which will host the summit, is a lynchpin of the alliance and the most militarily powerful of its members, many matters discussed at the summit will necessarily pertain to matters of security in Europe. If Turkey, located mostly in Asia but also with a portion of its territory in continental Europe, is included, 30 out of 32 NATO countries are located in Europe. Conversely, 23 NATO members are part of the 27-member EU.
“There is a hybrid war ongoing on the Poland-Belarus border, as well as on the Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian borders” with Belarus and Russia, Kosiniak-Kamysz said.
Poland and the three Baltic States are all members of both NATO and the EU.
Poland and Lithuania in particular, and to a lesser extent Latvia, have since July 2021 seen numerous attempts by illegal migrants to cross their borders into EU territory.
The migrant crisis, engineered by Belarus, is ostensibly a response to sanctions imposed on the regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko. But Minsk’s status as effectively a satellite of Russia suggests that the ultimate responsibility for the surge in migration
lies with the Kremlin.
Kosiniak-Kamysz and his Lithuanian counterpart announced that their countries would cooperate and share experience in protecting their borders.
Kasčiūnas said that “Poland has vast experience in border protection and I think we will be able to share our experience,” while Kosiniak-Kamysz thanked his Lithuanian opposite number for the chance to acquaint himself with Lithuanian solutions to border protection challenges.
The two defense ministers later met again later during the day in Vilnius for bilateral talks followed by a joint press conference.
Protecting the borders
In response to the ongoing border crisis, Poland and its Baltic neighbors constructed barriers in order to better insulate their frontiers from the flow of illegal migrants.
In late May, Poland announced a plan to construct an “Eastern Shield”, a line of fortifications along its eastern border to boost its defenses in the face of possible Russian military aggression.
Similar ideas to fortify the borders of the Baltic states with Russia and Belarus have also emerged, with plans to eventually integrate the
Eastern Shield and the Baltic Defense Line with the help of EU funding.
“Building a defense infrastructure system along the EU external border with Russia and Belarus will address the dire and urgent need to secure the EU from military and hybrid threats,” the leaders of the four countries
said in late June.
In a letter, they added that “the scale and costs of this joint endeavor require dedicated EU action to support it both politically and financially”.
They stressed that “extraordinary measures need to be employed as the EU's external border must be protected and defended with military and civilian means.”
