THE European Union may be willing to fund the construction of a wall along its eastern border to keep out refugees, European Council president Charles Michel said in Warsaw today.

The proposal has echoes of the notorious wall that former US president Donald Trump sought to construct along the Mexican border.

Mr Michel said that the European Commission would discuss financing “physical infrastructure at the borders” in the coming days because of the “serious crisis” caused by what he called a “brutal attack” on Poland — the presence of thousands of refugees along the country’s forested border with Belarus who are seeking entry to the EU.

Poland and Lithuania allege that Belarus is deliberately facilitating an influx of refugees in revenge for EU sanctions, which were applied following last year’s disputed re-election of President Alexander Lukashenko. 

But humanitarian groups point out that the Polish authorities have a duty of care to the refugees, who include families with children and are stuck in makeshift border camps with temperatures now falling below freezing at night. At least eight refugees have died so far during the standoff.

The United Nations refugee agency has accused Poland of conducting illegal pushbacks, where refugees who have made it onto its territory are forced back across the border. Belarus’s State Border Guard Committee announced today that it had evidence of this, saying that four Kurdish refugees had injuries from being forced back across barbed wire by Polish border guards.

Poland denies the claim but has declared a state of emergency and barred journalists from the area. 

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki suggested on Tuesday that the “mastermind” behind the crisis was not Mr Lukashenko but his ally President Vladimir Putin of Russia in a bid to destabilise the EU, a claim Russia dismissed as “irresponsible and unacceptable.” Mr Putin spoke to German Chancellor Angela Merkel about the crisis today, but other than an agreement to keep in touch it was unclear that any resolution had been proposed.

The EU is already known for policing “the deadliest border in the world,” with thousands of migrants dying in the Mediterranean as they try to reach the bloc’s territory. After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August, Brussels warned that it would step up efforts to stop “uncontrolled large-scale migration” from the region.