Controls at German borders extended
Published: Monday, Sep 16th 2024, 02:40
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As announced, Germany has extended its ongoing border controls in the east and south of the country to the land border in the west. Since midnight, officers in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia have been carrying out checks at the borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, as confirmed by the Federal Police and observed by reporters from the German Press Agency. On Monday, controls are also to be set up at the borders to Luxembourg and Denmark.
The additional checks will initially last for six months in order to reduce the number of unauthorized entries. Commuter and travel traffic should be affected as little as possible.
Border controls are not actually planned in the Schengen area. Until now, the federal police have only carried out checks at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland and, since the Olympic Games in Paris, France. Further controls have been legally possible since midnight.
Faeser wants to turn back illegal migration
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) said on Sunday evening: "In my view, this measure is urgently needed to further reduce irregular migration." Last week, she had ordered that there should be stationary controls at all land borders from Monday.
A spokesperson for the Federal Police said that additional officers were being deployed in Lower Saxony as planned. They are to check people entering the country from the Netherlands on the Lower Saxony side. Fixed checkpoints were set up on the Autobahn 30 near Bad Bentheim, the A280 near Bunde and the Bundesstrasse 402 near Schöninghsdorf (near Meppen). In addition, search measures were also announced on secondary roads near the border with the Netherlands. In North Rhine-Westphalia, for example, federal police officers checked people entering the country from Belgium on the Autobahn 44 near Aachen.
What the controls should achieve
Stationary border controls enable so-called rejections. This is less costly than ensuring that someone who has already entered Germany without authorization leaves again. According to the Federal Ministry of the Interior, there have been more than 30,000 rejections at German borders since October 2023. Foreigners who have not applied for asylum and those who have been banned from entering the country are currently being turned back. A demand by the CDU/CSU parliamentary group for more extensive refoulement was rejected by the coalition government due to concerns about European law.
What the neighboring countries think
Neighboring countries such as Austria and Poland had - also in the course of this broader discussion - raised concerns about the expansion of border controls. However, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) has "begun to talk very carefully with the heads of neighboring countries, including the President of the European Commission," as he said on Sunday evening during his trip to Uzbekistan. "Everyone knows that we are operating within the framework of European law, but that we are making maximum use of our options," explained Scholz. "Everyone understands that the number of people coming to Germany is too high and that it is therefore in the understandable interest of the German government to ensure that we get these things under control through good management of irregular migration." This also includes such controls.
However, they are viewed critically by the Greens. "It is questionable how effective border protection can be, also in view of the staffing levels of the federal police," North Rhine-Westphalia's Deputy Minister President Mona Neubaur told the "Tagesspiegel" newspaper.
Faeser notified the EU Commission of the expansion of the controls last Monday, as required, and justified it with a major burden on Germany due to irregular migration. They are initially planned for six months. However, it has been shown in the past that such controls do not end so quickly after their introduction. The federal police have been carrying out checks at the land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland since mid-October and at the border with Austria since fall 2015.
The Schengen Agreement does not provide for this in principle. However, other Schengen states also carry out checks at their land borders and justify this partly with the limitation of irregular migration, partly with the threat of Islamist terrorism or with risks in the context of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
What the Union demands
The Union considers the controls to be insufficient to get irregular immigration under control. "Controls alone are not enough. The refusal of the traffic light to allow comprehensive rejection is a capitulation," said the chairman of the CSU members of parliament, Alexander Dobrindt, to the "Bild" newspaper.
North Rhine-Westphalia's Interior Minister Herbert Reul (CDU) called for further talks with the SPD, among others. These must "absolutely" take place, he said in response to a corresponding question in the "Berlin Playbook" podcast of the magazine "Politico". "It is very important that we come together. This has to be solved across party lines."
CDU Chairman Friedrich Merz reaffirmed his openness in principle to a top-level meeting with Chancellor Scholz. He had declared his willingness to do so, the CDU/CSU parliamentary group leader said on the ZDF program "Berlin direkt". "However, the government spokesman then explained that the Chancellor would not consider issuing such an invitation. We cannot force him to do so. I take note of that."
Following the failure of the migration talks between the government and the CDU/CSU, Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) had suggested a new attempt at the highest level: with Merz, Scholz, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and himself.
©Keystone/SDA
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