WARSAW (Reuters) – Poland could reopen a border crossing with Belarus, the prime minister said on Friday, in a bid to help businesses in the country’s east hit by the closure of checkpoints due to tense relations between Warsaw and Minsk.
Poland’s border with Belarus has been a flashpoint since migrants flocked there in 2021 after Minsk, a close Russian ally, opened travel agencies in the Middle East offering a new unofficial route to Europe – a move the European Union says was meant to be a crisis.
Relations have become even more tense since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, with Prime Minister Donald Tusk saying on Saturday that Poland would spend around 10 billion zloty ($2.55 billion) on securing the border.
“We need to analyze whether it is possible to unblock one intersection,” Tusk said Friday during an election rally in the eastern city of Bialystok.
“I will not make this decision if the military and border guards have a clear negative view that this could have a negative, enormous impact on our security.”
He said the border crossing he would consider would be Bobrowniki. Currently, four of the six border crossings with Belarus are completely closed.
The Border Patrol has reported increased numbers of migrants attempting to cross the border illegally in recent weeks.
($1 = 3.9185 zloty)
(Reporting by Alan Charlish and Karol Badohal in Warsaw; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
