Berlin – ESI at debate with the Austrian Foreign Minister on the refugee crisis at the Poland-Belarus border

16 November 2021
Video: Der Standard

ESI’s Gerald Knaus was invited to participate in an online video debate on “Why does Europe allow itself to be blackmailed by a dictator with a few thousand displaced people?” organised by the Austrian newspaper “Der Standard.”

Gerald said that EU countries like Austria are currently breaking a legal and humanitarian taboo. In Poland, a law has been in force since the end of October that allows security forces to push displaced persons and migrants back to Belarus, even though they are exposed to the cold and possibly face death. Yet the foreign ministers of the other 26 EU states did not criticise this with a single word at a meeting in Brussels this week. Although European law and the basic principles of the Refugee Convention are being suspended.

The other panellists were Michael Linhart (Austrian Foreign Minister), Gerhard Mangott (Political Scientist and Russian Affairs Expert), and Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic (Deputy to the National Council, Green Party). The debate was moderated by András Szigetvari (Business Editor at Der Standard).