President notes necessity to earmark budget funds to strengthen Latvia's borders

  • 2021-07-21
  • LETA/TBT Staff

RIGA - Latvia must earmark budget funds to strengthen its eastern border, President Egils Levits said in an interview with Riga TV24 channel on Wednesday. 

Commenting on the Baltic presidents' stance on eastern neighbors - Belarus and Russia, Levits said that Belarus is currently using migrants as a weapon against Lithuania, which is why Lithuania is now rushing to build a fence and taking other measures to secure its border. 

Levits believes that Latvia should not wait until migrants start arriving in growing numbers and that it is necessary to turn attention to the Border Guard, its equipment and salaries. 

As reported, Lithuanian authorities say that the regime in Belarus is deliberately facilitating the flow of migrants across the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. In response to the latest EU sanctions, Belarus' authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko announced that Belarus will no longer protect Europe from illegal immigrants, drug trafficking and smuggling.