Poland to build €350 million “impenetrable” wall on Belarus border after president approves plan

Poland will move ahead with plans to construct what the government claims will be an “impenetrable” wall on its border with Belarus, after President Andrzej Duda yesterday signed off on the plan.

The decision comes in response to on ongoing surge in crossings over the border – mainly by people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa – that has been orchestrated by Belarus in what Warsaw sees as part of a “hybrid war” against it and the European Union with Russian backing.

The planned wall has, however, drawn criticism from the domestic opposition, who have raised concern over the high costs and a lack of transparency in tender processes for the project.

The act signed into law by Duda yesterday outlines rules for preparing and building a wall along around half of the length of Poland’s border with Belarus, which runs for 418km and is also the eastern frontier of the EU.

The wall – which will cost an estimated 1.6 billion zloty (€348 million) – will be equipped with motion sensors and a monitoring system. Construction is due to be completed by next summer.

The idea was first outlined by the government in early October, before being approved by the lower house of parliament, the Sejm, on 14 October.

It was amended by the opposition-controlled upper house, the Senate. But most of those amendments – including one requiring periodic reports on the course of investment – were overturned by the more powerful Sejm.

The bill was then finally passed by the Sejm on Friday last week, with 274 votes in favour and 174 against. Duda’s chancellery yesterday evening announced that he had signed the bill into law.

The emergency legislation has raised concern among the opposition, including over the fact that construction and environmental protection rules are being lifted. The act also paves the way for possible expropriation of properties.

Jan Grabiec, spokesman for Civic Platform (PO), the largest opposition party, warned that the government would be spending “1.6 billion beyond any control”. He claimed that lack of transparency in tender processes for the project would facilitate nepotism in the granting of contracts.

Poland was among the dozen member states that asked the EU to pay for “barriers” to help stop migrants from entering, but European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen refused. “There will be no funding of barbed wire and walls,” she told leaders at a summit in Brussels.

On Thursday, however, interior minister Mariusz Kamiński said that Poland could “afford the barrier” and that appropriate funds had already been secured, reports RMF FM.

During an earlier debate in October, Kamiński pledged that the country’s eastern frontier will have “the most modern security” in Europe. This would include a system of motion sensors and thermal cameras, he said.

The wall will replace the 2.5-metre razor-wire fence erected as an emergency measure in the summer. Last week the government increased its number of troops on the border to 10,000. It also recently extended a state of emergency there until December.

Poland’s border guard has recorded over 29,000 attempted illegal crossings from Belarus this year, compared to just 120 in the whole of 2020. Those numbers have been growing month by month, despite the increasingly treacherous conditions that have left at least seven border crossers dead in Poland.

Thousands of migrants have also managed to travel through Poland undetected and pass into Germany, which in response has reinforced its police patrols. Germany’s interior minister, Horst Seehofer, recently thanked Poland for protecting the EU’s eastern border.

Main image credit: Adam Guz/KPRM (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Maria Wilczek

Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.