Germany brings in its plan to end unchecked illegal immigration to the country today with enhanced border controls at all nine of its borders.
The new controls will be in place for an initial six months and are expected to include temporary structures at land crossings and spot checks by federal police.
The coalition government hopes to show its seriousness about efforts to tackle irregular migration following a spate of Islamist attacks in recent months that have galvanised groups on the far-right.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser insisted yesterday that the step would help ‘put a stop to criminals and identify and stop Islamists at an early stage’.
But the policy has not been without its criticism internally, and risks fracturing Germany’s centre-left coalition and alienating its European neighbours.
Police at the German-Polish border control traffic as enhanced border checks are introduced
The checks will be in place for an initial six month period (Pictured: Kehl, Germany on Monday)
A German police officer stands guard next to a dog at a border with France on Monday
Poland and Austria are among the neighbours that have voiced concern, while the European Commission has warned that members of the 27-nation bloc must only impose such steps in exceptional circumstances.
Germany lies at the heart of Europe and borders nine countries that are part of the visa-free Schengen zone, designed to allow the free movement of people and goods.
Border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland were already in place before the crackdown was announced.
But these will now be expanded to Germany’s borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, too.
Faeser said the government hoped to minimise the impact on people living and working in border regions, promising ‘coordination with our neighbouring countries’.
The interior ministry however noted that travellers should carry identification when crossing the border.
Although businesses operating in the region have warned enhanced border controls could come with dire consequences.
Geert van Eijk, of the trade association Evofenedex, said that delays could cost ‘tens, perhaps even hundreds of millions of euros’.
In recent weeks, a string of extremist attacks have shocked Germany, fuelling rising public anger.
Last month, a man on a knife rampage killed three people and wounded eight more at a festival in the western city of Solingen.
The Syrian suspect, who has alleged links to the Islamic State group, had been intended for deportation but managed to evade authorities.
The enforcement failure set off a bitter debate which marked the run-up to two regional polls in the formerly communist east, where the anti-immigration AfD scored unprecedented results.
With national elections looming next year, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government has been under intense political pressure to toughen its stance on migrants and asylum seekers.
Scholz was in Uzbekistan on Sunday to sign a migration deal for workers to come to Germany, while simplifying deportation procedures in the opposite direction so that ‘those that must go back do go back’, the chancellor said.
Closer to home, the German government has presented plans to speed up deportations to European partners.
Under EU rules, asylum requests are meant to be handled by the country of arrival. The system has placed a huge strain on countries on the European periphery, where leaders have demanded more burden-sharing.
Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said that Germany tightening its borders means that it would ‘essentially pass the buck to countries located on the outer borders of Europe’.
Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said his country ‘will not accept people who are rejected from Germany’, while Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk condemned Germany’s move as ‘unacceptable’.
Warsaw has also struggled with migration and accused Moscow of smuggling people from Africa and the Middle East into Europe by sending them through Belarus to the Polish border.
Berlin on Friday said that Tusk and Scholz had discussed the issue and agreed to strengthen EU external borders, ‘especially in view of the cynical instrumentalisation of migrants by Belarus’.
Hard-right political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) has become the first of its ilk to win in the nation since the Second World War (File image, August 31)
A police officer checks vehicles near the border with Belgium in Aachen on Monday
Police officers check a van at the Bunderneuland border crossing early on Monday morning
Hungary’s nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, meanwhile, mocked the German chancellor on social media site X, writing: ‘Bundeskanzler Scholz, welcome to the club! #StopMigration.’
Germany took in more than a million asylum seekers in 2015-16, many of them Syrians, and has hosted over a million Ukrainians since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022.
The extra burden on municipal authorities and integration services in Germany needed to be ‘taken into account’ when talking about new border controls, Berlin’s interior ministry said.
In the Netherlands, Prime Minister Dick Schoof on Friday unveiled the country’s strictest migration policy yet, saying it will request an opt-out from EU common policy on asylum next week.
A four-party coalition dominated by far-right firebrand Geert Wilders’s Freedom Party wants to declare an ‘asylum crisis’ to curb the influx of migrants through a tough set of rules including border controls.