Lithuania’s current crisis sparked by an influx of migrants from its border with Belarus helped it to “better understand” the difficulties faced by Malta and the migratory flows in the Mediterranean, according to its deputy foreign minister.

“Migration is not something that should remain up to the member state to face on its own. This is a joint responsibility and must be tackled collectively. We support Malta’s call for responsibility-sharing. We are sceptical about this being mandatory but believe that it should remain voluntary,” Arnoldas Pranckevičius told Times of Malta in an interview.

“We’ve always understood these difficulties and we have helped Malta with the relocation of migrants in the past, but yes, the recent migration situation that has affected us made us better understand these difficulties,” he said. Lithuania was one of a few countries that relocated migrants from Malta in 2017 and from Italy last year.

“We need to retain the flexibility, but we surely need to have a system that works in place because frontier countries cannot and should not face the situation alone.”

We need to retain flexibility, but we surely need to have a system that works in place because frontier countries cannot and should not face the situation alone

The migration being faced in Malta is different from Lithuania’s, which was state-sponsored and a direct result of a “hybrid attack” launched by the Lukashenko regime in Belarus which was “instrumentalising migration to hold the EU to ransom” by intimidating the EU to lift its sanctions. The Lukashenko regime was “retaliating and trying to force the EU into direct talks” because it considers him to be an illegitimate leader of the country.

Pranckevičius said Belarus employed a “very unexpected way to pressure us” by luring common people, mostly from Iraq, in a scheme that robs them of their life savings to get to Minsk with the promise of easy access to the European Union. Instead, they found themselves locked in the Belarusian forests with no water and food, in horrible temperatures and with an uncertain future.

Lithuania had to deal with the crossing of 4,000 migrants overnight, stretching its border control and reception centres to the limit. “We were not prepared to deal with it and we counted on EU support, which we got, including from Malta and Frontex, the EU border agency,” he said.

He said Frontex was doing “an incredible job” in helping Lithuanian police its border and believed this agency should be beefed up to be in a better position to offer its services to ensure the EU’s safety and security.

Unlike Malta, which was in the path of a natural migration path, Lithuania was on the receiving end of an “unnatural, artificial migratory route”.

Pranckevičius was in Malta last week for talks with Foreign Minister Evarist Bartolo, among others. He said Lithuania had identified a few areas where it could intensify its trade and economic ties, especially in the field of renewable energy, solar energy, and other areas where the countries could team up their business communities to explore cooperation, such as agriculture and agri-food, IT, ICT, and fintech sectors.

During his visit to Malta, Pranckevičius opened the new consulate office for Lithuania in Malta and met its new consul, Marco Mercieca, who is succeeding Tony Zahra, who was honorary consul of Lithuania in Malta for 24 years. “I came here to start a new chapter in diplomatic relationships between Lithuania and Malta. We have a lot in common,” he said.