Poland’s parliament has agreed on constructing a quasi wall on its border with Belarus, intended to curb illegal entries from the neighbouring country.

The Polish parliament has approved the construction of a fortified structure on the border with Belarus. The national-conservative government reacted to the influx of refugees at the EU’s external border with the decision, costing around 353 million euros. Polish President Andrzej Duda is expected to sign the bill into law within the next few days.

The barrier will reportedly extend over a length of more than 100 kilometres along the eastern EU external border.

Since August, thousands of people – mainly from the Middle East and Africa – have tried to cross the Polish border from Belarus. Warsaw had already stationed thousands of soldiers at the border in the past few weeks, erected a barbed wire fence and declared a state of emergency in the border area. Moreover, Poland has reportedly been engaging in illegal pushbacks.

In response to EU sanctions, the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko declared in the spring that he would no longer stop migrants heading for the European Union. Poland – as well as Lithuania and Latvia – reacted by increasing the security of the border with Belarus, while the EU accuses Lukashenko of smuggling in people from crisis areas.

A spokeswoman for the German government said Berlin was behind the European Commission’s promise to financially support the EU states Poland, Latvia and Lithuania in protecting their borders.

After all, an increased number of individuals has once again found their way to Germany via the new route. In the first four weeks of October, the federal police registered 4,889 individuals who entered German soil unauthorized entry via Belarus and Poland. That was more than twice as many as in September.

Image by Lukasz Radziejewski(Flickr)/Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0)