On 28 June 2022, the Ministry of the Interior received official approval from the European Commission for the allocation of EUR 63 million for measures to strengthen the security of the Latvian-Belarusian border. With the support of the European Union, the Ministry of the Interior will implement Latvia’s first fully-fledged border automation project. Any attempts to illegally cross the Latvian-Belarusian border or hybrid attacks by Belarusian authorities on the border will be prevented.
Dimitrijs Trofimovs, State Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior, emphasizes: “In the light of the hybrid attack launched by Belarus last August, facilitating irregular migrant flows to Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Latvia have managed to convince the European Commission of the need for additional investment in securing this border. As a result, we will strengthen the capacity and capabilities of the State Border Guard both on the ground and in the air. We will also introduce smart, digital and automated solutions for border protection and surveillance. This will be a significant additional contribution to what the Latvian Government and the Saeima decided on the construction of physical infrastructure on the Latvia-Belarus border.”
Since mid-2021, a hybrid offensive operation has been observed on the Latvian-Belarusian border - a targeted intensification of irregular migration flows towards Latvia with the political support of the Belarusian authorities. The security risks have been further aggravated by Russia’s war against Ukraine, launched on 24 February 2022 and supported by the Belarusian authorities. In order to strengthen the long-term security of the Latvian-Belarusian border, the Ministry of the Interior started at the end of 2021 to develop the necessary security solution plans to reinforce long-term surveillance, which were submitted to the European Commission in March 2022.
The European Commission has endorsed a number of actions proposed by the Ministry of the Interior. Most of the funding is earmarked for the Latvian-Belarusian border surveillance infrastructure - smart and digital surveillance of the border, automating processes and ensuring continuous monitoring. The State Border Guard will also receive additional technical support for more intensive surveillance of the border in the long term.
The modernization of the Latvian-Belarusian border surveillance will be implemented within the framework of the EU-funded project “Action Plan for Latvian-Belarusian Border Management”. The project has a financial allocation of EUR 63 million from the European Union, complemented by co-financing from the state budget.