Madam President, dear colleagues,

Europe is full.

In parallel with a strategic and cautious integration policy – which is a long‑term solution – the only answer is fostering returns. We should be especially alert in the context of instrumentalised immigration. During Lukashenko’s hybrid attack on Lithuania, Latvia and Poland, around 150 000 illegal crossings were registered in a short‑time slot, and these crossings were accompanied by the special forces of Belarus, which in some cases forced the migrants to enter the European Union using their brutal armed force. Any kind of further escalation is possible in such a context. Our countries faced a need for an urgent solution.

We Lithuanians built a physical barrier on our own account in a record time, but what we really lacked was the common European‑wide approach to returns. The negotiations with third countries on admitting their nationals, for example Iraq, were complicated. Only together as the EU, we can do it.

To demolish Schengen and to build walls between ourselves is not a European solution. To strengthen the external borders and to foster the return process, this is the answer.