Status: 04/14/2023 8:58 p.m
Actually, there should be no border controls between Schengen countries. When many refugees came in 2015, Germany temporarily introduced controls at the border with Austria – and repeatedly extended them. Same now.
The border controls at the German-Austrian land border are to be extended by a further six months. This emerges from a letter from Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) to the EU Commission ARD Capital Studio present. It states that no sustained decline in irregular migration to Central and Western Europe is to be expected in the foreseeable future.
Irregular migration, overwhelmed municipalities
“It is worrying that in 2022 there was a peak in irregular migration detected at the EU’s external borders since 2016,” the letter said. Germany was again the main destination country in Europe last year. In view of the increasing number of migrants, the accommodation situation in German federal states and municipalities has become even more difficult. Faeser therefore sees himself forced to order internal border controls for a further six months on the main route of irregular migration to Germany, effective May 12.
Border controls in Bavaria since 2015
Actually, there are no stationary identity checks at the borders in the Schengen area, to which 27 European countries belong. In recent years, however, several countries have used an exception, including Germany.
In autumn 2015, the then Federal Minister of the Interior, Thomas de Maizière (CDU), under the then Chancellor Angela Merkel, reintroduced border controls in Bavaria on the border with Austria. The reason was tens of thousands of refugees and other migrants who had made their way from Greece to Western Europe via the Balkan route. The exemption was repeatedly extended.
Criticism from the police union and the Greens
The police union (GdP) criticized the fact that the border should continue to be controlled only stationary, for example on the motorways. This has a “high transparency for the other person,” said the GdP chairman Andreas Roßkopf of the Bayern media group. The GdP had called in vain for flexible and mobile controls that were more effective against illegal migration.
The parliamentary group leader of the Bavarian state parliament Greens, Katharina Schulze, called the extension wrong. She called for a “contemporary approach to one of the greatest achievements in Europe: the freedom to travel in the Schengen area”. The Greens politician continued: “In order to really get more security, we need more cross-border police cooperation, event-related priority checks and more police officers within our country.”
Faeser calls for better control of the EU’s external borders
In her e-mail to the Commission, Faeser writes that she supports the joint efforts at European level to do everything possible to preserve the border-free Schengen area. For this it is necessary, for example, that the member states receive suitable instruments for better control and management of migration at the European external borders.
Reliable registration and recording at the external borders are planned. But: “As long as these have not yet been decided and implemented, there is a risk for the Schengen area with open internal borders,” says Faeser.
Denmark relaxes border controls
On the other hand, the controls at the German-Danish border are to be relaxed again from mid-May. Instead of entry controls, the Danish police want to focus more on fighting cross-border crime in the future, as the Danish Ministry of Justice announced. Commuters or vacationers from Germany, on the other hand, should be checked less frequently. The changes will come into effect on May 12 and are provisionally scheduled to last until November 11.
The border controls to Denmark’s other neighboring country Sweden should be completely eliminated during this time. The fact that border controls with Germany are temporarily maintained was justified by uncertainties caused by the Russian war in Ukraine, a continuing serious threat of terrorism, a threat from foreign secret services and the pressure to migrate in Europe.