Germany has announced that it will install controls at all its borders from September 16th in the face of the enormous migratory pressure it is experiencing and to protect itself from Islamist terrorism. Berlin has already notified the European Commission of its decision, taken a few days before the regional elections, which showed the rise of the extreme right and amid mounting political pressure to toughen immigration and asylum laws.
“We are strengthening internal security and maintaining our hard line against irregular migration. We will continue on this path,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, a Social Democrat, said at an appearance in Berlin called just over an hour in advance. “Until we achieve stronger protection of the EU's external borders through the new Common European Asylum System and other measures, this also requires us to intensify controls at our national borders,” he added.
After many doubts, the German tripartite formed by the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Liberals decided last October to establish border controls fixed on the crossings with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, something it had previously hesitated to do for fear of hindering the flow of goods and workers that circulate freely between the countries of the Schengen area. The aim was to strengthen the fight against human trafficking and to limit irregular migration, which continues to grow in the face of growing criticism from municipalities overwhelmed by the number of refugees.
Border controls are, in theory, an exception of last resort to the general rule of the Schengen Treaty, which enshrines freedom of movement between signatory countries. In practice, they have proven to be more frequent than expected. The regulations allow them to be established at internal borders “in the event of a serious threat to public policy or internal security”, but only “in exceptional situations” and in compliance with “the principle of proportionality”.
The exception was intended for specific events or situations, such as the celebration of the European Cup last June in Germany, but currently eight countries in the European Union have these active controls at some of their borders. They do so by appealing to national security or the immigration crisis. France, for example, put them in place after the terrorist attacks of 2015 and has extended them.
Knowing what's happening outside means understanding what's going to happen inside, not missing anything.
The Jihadist Attack in Solingen The shooting that claimed the lives of three people, which occurred just days before crucial elections in two eastern federal states, shocked the country and provoked an almost unanimous reaction in favour of tougher immigration policy. The victory of the far right in Thuringia and its second place in Saxony in the 1st have once again placed border and asylum policy at the centre of the political debate. The Scholz government is also thinking about the elections to be held on the 22nd in the eastern state of Brandenburg, where the Alternative for Germany party, which advocates a strong anti-immigration discourse, is once again the favourite.
30,000 border pushbacks
The controls at the East German border, which have continued to spread and are currently active, They have allowed over 30,000 refusals at the border, Faeser said. “This decision [ampliar a todas las fronteras] This will serve to protect us against the dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious cross-border crime. “We are doing everything possible to protect the population of our country,” the minister stressed.
The new development is that Germany is preparing to install controls also at the borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, for an initial period of six months. The aim is to protect the almost 3,900 kilometres of external border, although police unions have already warned that it is impossible to control all border crossings and that migrants will continue to enter the country through forests and unpaved roads.
“In the area of irregular migration, the overall burden on Germany must be taken into account, in particular the limited capacities of local authorities in terms of accommodation, education and integration due to the admission of 1.2 million war refugees from Ukraine and asylum-seeking migrants in recent years,” the Interior Ministry said in a statement.
The opposition Christian Democrats had issued an ultimatum to Chancellor Olaf Scholz last week to tighten controls and prevent further irregular entries. CDU leader Friedrich Merz is demanding that the border refusals be extended. If he does not get an adequate response, he has threatened to walk out of the negotiations scheduled for Tuesday in Berlin with the states and the opposition. “It is urgent” that the chancellor clarify what he will do, Merz said: “And that includes an indispensable decision by the federal government to immediately carry out border refusals and to do so comprehensively, not in one way or another. a little bit.”
Border refusals are highly controversial and their legality is questionable. Many asylum seekers enter Germany without identity papers (in 2024, 57 percent of adult refugees, according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees) and when this happens, it is virtually impossible to deport them. It is unclear to which country these people should be deported or their country of origin refuses to issue new documents and take them back.
The Dublin Regulation stipulates that refugees must be returned to the EU country in which they were initially registered and that their asylum application must be processed there. However, in practice, it is generally not applied. Sometimes because they are in hiding when the authorities come to collect them – as in the case of the suspected jihadist murderer in Solingen – or because other member states do not accept their return. In 2023, Germany sent almost 75,000 applications for reception to EU countries, but only transferred 5,000. The first reaction from one of its neighbors came on Monday: “Austria will not accept any person rejected by Germany. There is no room for maneuver,” Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told the German newspaper. Picture.
Minister Faeser stressed that she would act in close coordination with neighbouring countries with the aim of “minimising the impact on travellers and daily life in the border regions”. Cross-border police cooperation includes joint patrols and joint police and customs cooperation centres that have already been operating for months on the eastern borders. Border controls will be applied “with spatial and temporal flexibility, depending on the current situation”, Interior explained. The aim is to prevent human traffickers from knowing where the controls are and being able to circumvent them.
German police have detected around 52,000 unauthorized entries and carried out around 30,000 returns as part of temporary internal border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland since October last year. The returns take place “in the case of people who do not present valid documents or who have falsified documents, or who attempt to enter the country without a valid visa or residence permit,” Interior explains.
Follow all international news on Facebook And xor in our weekly newsletter.