POLAND’S defence minister said today his country is bolstering a metal barrier along its border with Belarus to deter desperate people seeking a better life in the EU.

“We are mending the barrier on the Polish-Belarusian border, we are strengthening this barrier,” Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on private Radio Zet. “The spending on these purposes is the highest in [Poland’s] history.”

Mr Kosiniak-Kamysz said the increased presence of Polish and allied military forces in regions close to the border is also helping to tighten the eastern frontier of Nato and the European Union.