Polish Deputy Foreign Minister Andrzej Szejna communicated on his country’s media that for borders with Belarus to remain open and avoid an adverse effect on trade, among other things, the Belarusian side must meet three specific conditions.

According to Szejna’s comments on Radio Zet a few days ago, Poland has a specific set of conditions that could normalise the relations with neighbouring Belarus. Those include “the end of hybrid attacks, the extradition of the killer of a Polish soldier and the release of imprisoned Poles”.

Since last week, the two sides have been on track for a diplomatic collision with a possible spillover on transport. A slowdown in freight traffic through the Malaszewicze border crossing was linked to ‘warnings’ that Duda made to Chinese counterparts that Poland “would close the Malaszewicze border point” to stop orchestrated migrant flows from Belarus.

With this statement, Duda attempted to apply indirect pressure on Belarus and ‘push it to behave’ by involving China, one of the biggest beneficiaries of cross-border rail traffic between the two states due to the Silk Road.

Currently, the Polish government is at the negotiation table with its Belarusian counterparts in an attempt to ‘normalise relations’. Nevertheless, the imminent danger of blocking the borders, specifically Malaszewicze, is still there, indicating how pure politics can directly affect business on a global scale.