After Lithuania’s Constitutional Court ruled that the government’s policy of detaining irregular migrants in 2021 was unlawful, Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė took a drilling from opposition MPs in the parliament on Thursday.
Reading out her prepared answers to the inquiry, Bilotaitė argued that the policy in response to an upsurge of irregular migrants coming to Lithuania via Belarus was endorsed by everyone, including opposition groups in the parliament, and that it was coordinated with the European Commission.
“If legal experts had indicated any incompatibility with the Constitution at that time, we would have looked for other solutions. We did not receive such indications. The Seimas [parliament] considered and responded to the proposals of individual lawmakers when adopting this law, and the vote reflected the opinion of the entire Seimas,” Bilotaitė told lawmakers on Thursday.
The minister answered questions on the 2021 migration crisis at the invitation of the opposition political groups after the country’s Constitutional Court ruled recently that the forced placement of migrants at foreigners’ registration centres – de facto detentions – ran counter to Lithuania’s main law.
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Almost 4,200 migrants entered Lithuania from Belarus in 2021 before the government instructed the border guards to start pushing them back from the border, a practise that in itself has provoked criticism of human rights violations. Bilotaitė and the government have been arguing that the response was justifiable because the migrants were trafficked by the Belarusian government as a way of pressuring Lithuania and the EU.
“We regularly informed the European Commission about the situation and the measures taken. While we were coordinating our legal steps, we were urged [by the opposition] to move faster. Now the same voices are saying we should have weighed it better,” Bilotaitė told the parliament on Thursday.
She insisted that the government had to stop the flow of migrants for the sake of security, noting that the EU’s approach to irregular migration and its management is also changing.
“Let me remind you that we received a lot of support from the European Commission, EU agencies, member states and even third countries. Everyone in Europe understood that our situation was extraordinary and that this was a well-orchestrated attack. And EU law based on democratic values became an instrument of blatant abuse,” Bilotaite said.
Lithuania also received a response from the EU after it complained that migration was being instrumentalised by the Minsk government, the minister said.
“We were heard, and the concept of instrumentalised migration and certain derogations from EU law appeared. One of them is the possibility to significantly prolong the so-called border asylum procedure, as well as the restriction of freedom of movement beyond the current EU law,” Bilotaitė said.
She also pointed out that the EU Home Affairs Council adopted a general approach on an Asylum Procedure Regulation last week and it extends the time for the border asylum procedure to 28 weeks.
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