Extraordinary meeting of interior ministers to take place under crisis response mechanism in face of migration situation in Lithuania

Lithuanian Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė has requested the Republic of Slovenia, now holding the EU i Council Presidency, to call an extraordinary meeting of interior ministers in the context of the Integrated Political Crisis Response (IPCR) mechanism. The meeting is to take place on 18 August 2021. Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda have announced and supported the meeting in a joint letter.

The ministers will be briefed about the current migration situation in Lithuania and neighbouring countries. The aim of the meeting is to determine concrete measures and forms of assistance to the affected states in managing and containing illegal crossings at the border with Belarus, also from the aspect of security at this section of the external EU border.

The European Commission, the European External Action Service i (EEAS), the European Border and Coast Guard Agency i (Frontex), the EU’s Law Enforcement Agency (Europol) and the European Asylum Support Office i (EASO) have also been invited to attend.

This virtual meeting will be chaired by Minister Aleš Hojs, from the EU Council in Brussels.

Media content

Doorstep and post-meeting statements by Minister Aleš Hojs will be available at https://video.consilium.europa.eu/home/en and https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/ebs/both/20210818. A press release will be published after the meeting.

The IPCR mechanism is an EU Council framework for the coordination of cross-sectoral response to crises at the highest political level. The IPCR supports rapid and coordinated decision-making at the EU political level for major and complex crises. The IPCR, which has already been activated to address migration flows, has the advantage of enabling concrete conclusions and measures to be taken despite the videoconferencing format.