The Polish Council of Ministers has approved a draft law to build a “high, solid barrier with a monitoring system and motion sensors” at the border with Belarus, aiming to curb migrants illegally crossing into Polish territory.
“The Council of Ministers has just adopted a bill on the construction of state border security, submitted by the Ministry of the Interior and Administration,” Mariusz Kamiński, the Minister of Interior and Administration, wrote on Twitter on Tuesday.
The draft has already been submitted to the Sejm, the Polish parliamentary body, and will come into effect a day after it has been published in the Journal of Law due to the immediate threat at the border, according to Kamiński.
“The actions taken by the Alexander Lukashenko regime demanded a firm response from the Polish government,” said Kamiński, adding that these kinds of barriers have successfully worked in other countries. The construction process can take many months, with different parts of the border requiring different construction activities.
Government spokesperson Piotr Mueller said on Wednesday that “at the moment, the funds secured for this construction are around PLN500 million” — roughly €110 million. The total costs of the wall, however, could exceed PLN1.6 billion, according to a government estimate, which is about €350 million.
An exact figure will only be available once the engineering documentation is prepared. The draft indicated that “information on the structure, security and technical parameters of the barrier does not constitute public information,” according to national media.
Belarussian authoritarian leader Lukashenko started a “hybrid war” against bordering EU countries in retaliation for EU sanctions over his disputed presidential election. Over 16,000 illegal border crossing attempts have been stopped by Polish officials.
In response to rising pressure at the border, Vice Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczyński announced last week that a “very serious dam” would be created, which would be “really very difficult to cross.”
Source: Politico
