Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Shimonyte said that the Cabinet of Ministers approved amendments to a number of laws that need to be adopted for the legal regulation of the process of building a fence on the border with Belarus, TASS reports.
“It is necessary to erect a physical barrier at the border as soon as possible. Therefore, the government asks the parliament to consider the prepared package of documents as a matter of urgency”, the prime minister said at a meeting with journalists.
Lithuania intends to build a four-meter fence of welded wire mesh on the border with Belarus, over which concertina, a barbed wire with sharp blades used by the military, will be stretched. An additional 3 meters high barbed wire line will be installed in front of the fence.
According to preliminary estimates, the construction of the fence will cost Lithuania 12 million euros. Funds for the project are planned to be allocated from the state budget, which is already experiencing a deficit. Vilnius counted on help from the EU, but the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs Ilva Johansson said that Brussels does not practice financing such projects.
According to political analyst Vladimir Soloveichik, the European Union is “playing with fire” against the background of the exacerbation of the migration crisis in Lithuania.