ABSTRACT
The chapter explores the link between visa policies as a migration management tool and the concept of migrant instrumentalisation through the EU–Belarus border crisis. In the summer of 2021, following EU sanctions on Minsk, Belarus increased the issuance of visas to nationals from refugee-producing countries and ceased preventing irregular border crossings into the EU. Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland framed this as migrant instrumentalisation, using the narrative to justify pushbacks and severe restrictions on asylum rights.
This paper specifically focuses on one element of this framing: the visa policies of Belarus and Russia, which are often cited by EU and Member State political actors as key tools of ‘instrumentalisation’. It challenges this narrative, arguing that it obscures the EU's own restrictive visa regimes and lack of legal pathways to protection. It also highlights the difficulty of proving an intent to destabilise the EU through visa policies, warning against broad assumptions that ignore foreign nationals’ diverse motives and agency. Since early 2022, foreign nationals have most frequently entered Belarus via Russia, using Russian visas or visa-free travel. However, the claim that Russia centrally coordinates its visa policies to put pressure on the EU is not substantiated by evidence. Instead, decentralised corruption and the proliferation of fixer networks appear to facilitate irregular migration. Additionally, many foreign nationals live in precarious conditions in Russia before attempting to enter the EU, further complicating simplistic ‘instrumentalisation’ claims.
