EU won't tolerate Minsk's migration "hybrid attack", chief executive says

The European Union will stand up to a "hybrid attack" by Belarus using migration, the bloc's chief executive said, but stressed the union would remain vulnerable for as long as its 27 member countries remain divided on the hot-button issue. "They've put people on planes and literally pushed them towards our borders," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said of the Belarusian authorities during an annual policy speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday. "It is a hybrid attack to destabilise Europe.

The European Union will stand up to a "hybrid attack" by Belarus using migration, the bloc's chief executive said but stressed the union would remain vulnerable for as long as its 27 member countries remain divided on the hot-button issue.

"They've put people on planes and literally pushed them towards our borders," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said of the Belarusian authorities during an annual policy speech to the European Parliament on Wednesday.

"It is a hybrid attack to destabilize Europe. We will never tolerate that," she said, vowing support to Lithuania, Latvia, and Poland who border Belarus and have the EU's eastern external frontier. But she stressed the EU's bitter internal divisions on how to handle refugees and migrants meant the bloc remained open to blackmail while people smugglers and Europe's geopolitical rivals benefit.