EU values, laws under threat amid standoff at Belarus border

By LORNE COOK
Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — Fears that the authoritarian leader of Belarus is using migrants as a “hybrid warfare” tactic to destabilize the European Union are putting new strains on some of the values and laws of the 27-nation bloc. The crisis at the borders of Poland, Lithuania and Latvia is fueling calls for the EU to finance the construction of something it never wanted to build: fences and walls at the border. The EU’s executive commission believes such barriers are ineffective. But in the heightened climate surrounding Belarus, that attitude may be changing. The crisis came to a head after large groups of asylum-seekers gathered at a border crossing in Belarus near a village in Poland.