Status: 10/20/2021 6:57 a.m.
The number of refugees arriving in Germany via Belarus and Poland is increasing. The background to this is tensions between the EU and Belarus. The federal government is now considering border controls – today the cabinet is advising.
So far it’s about 5000 people. So many have crossed the German-Polish border without permission since August. Federal police officers have discovered entry stamps from Belarus in their passports. Heiko Teggatz from the Federal Police Union calls the development “alarming”.
“I fear that the situation on the German-Polish border will develop in a similar way to that on the German-Austrian border in 2015.” The trade unionist warns of uncontrolled migration and therefore demands that there be controls again at the border between Poland and Germany.
Border controls or veil searches?
Dirk Wiese is against it. The SPD MP considers comparisons with the refugee crisis in 2015 to be inappropriate. He advises calm and prudence. “Border controls are a massive interference. They hinder border traffic, they would also hinder the supply chain in a situation where it is already difficult. So: No need to panic, we can do it.”
Border controls are one possibility. A more intensive veil search in the border area would be another. Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has also suggested to his Polish colleague that the joint patrols with officials from both countries should be intensified.
CDU internal politician Thorsten Frei is also counting on this. Border controls are the last resort. “I can of course imagine that if the situation should worsen, then the internal border to Poland will be checked in the form of random checks, visual inspections.”
Seehofer doesn’t want to decide alone
Actually, Seehofer could decide on the action of the German authorities alone. But the CSU politician is currently holding back, as his spokeswoman Alina Vick explains. “A new government will soon be formed, so that the Federal Minister of the Interior does not want to make such far-reaching decisions without the cabinet if decisions then have to be taken.”
Dieter Romann would be responsible for implementing the decisions. The Federal Police President emphasizes: It is about controls, not about border closings. “We do not intend to restrict freedom of movement and we also do not intend to restrict the free movement of goods. But we do want to look into one or the other truck to see whether people are dying of thirst or suffocating.” Romann sees controls on the border between Poland and Germany primarily as a fight against smugglers.
Lukashenko wants to destabilize the EU
The fact that more refugees have entered the EU in recent weeks is mainly due to the Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko. The German government accuses him of having people flown in from crisis regions and then taking them to the EU’s external border between Belarus and Poland in order to destabilize the EU.
As the FDP internal politician Konstantin Kuhle says, Lukashenko uses people as weapons. The EU shouldn’t put up with that. “The point must be to work together with Poland on a solution to the influx. The key to this lies in Minsk and with more pressure on the Belarusian government.”
Lukashenko’s approach reveals a weak point in the EU: a lack of common migration policy. So far, it has failed, among other things, because of resistance from Eastern Europe.