Recently, at the UN General Assembly, Uladzimir Makey met with diplomats from different countries, including foreign ministers from EU countries like Hungary, Finland, and Estonia.
In 2020, the European Union did not recognize the presidential elections in Belarus as free and fair, and stated that they were rigged. Following that, the international cooperation of Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s regime with European countries sharply declined.
What topics could the ministers of the three EU countries discuss with Makey?
Estonia
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Estonia issued a press release on bilateral international contacts during the UN General Assembly. According to the press release, the head of the institution, Eva-Maria Liimets, had a total of 17 contacts with representatives of different countries during the week.
In particular, it is reported that Eva-Maria Liimetz discussed with Makey “bilateral issues, relations between Belarus and the European Union, as well as regional tensions in the field of security.”
Obviously, they must have spoken about the migration crisis that Lukashenka created on the borders of Belarus and the European Union. In recent days, the situation has become even more acute as the bodies of dead migrants from Asia were found at the borders.
Finland
Finnish Foreign Ministry has not written anything about contacts with Makey, but Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto commented on this subject to the Finnish newspaper Helsingin Sanomat.
According to him, Pekka Haavisto discussed with Makey the issue of human rights, violation of which by Lukashenka’s regime caused the EU sanctions. Haavisto mentioned more than 600 Belarusian political prisoners and stressed Finland’s wish to see the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) play a role in resolving the crisis in Belarus.
He also pointed to the problem of migrants and the fact that the Belarusian opposition has been offering the Lukashenka regime to negotiate for a long time.
Hungary
We were unable to find anything about the conversation of the Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Peter Szijjarto, with Uladzimir Makey on the website of the Hungarian Foreign Ministry. It is likely, however, that the issue of migrants was also one of the major ones.
Belarus was last mentioned on the site of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary on September 15 this year. Then Minister Szijjarto said that “Europe is a victim of an attack from several directions… In addition to the usual [threats] from the south and southeast, there is increasing migration pressure from the east. He noted that Lithuania and Poland feel threatened from Belarus, and this has a direct impact on all of northern Europe.”
Hungary had previously been sharply condemned for its anti-immigration policies during the 2015 crisis, but now, the minister said, “the situation has changed, and it has become commonplace in the European Union to build border barriers.”
