Germany’s introduction of strict controls on all its land borders to crack down on migration and ‘Islamist terrorism’ has prompted anger from its European neighbours who are loathe to accept migrants turned away by Berlin.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser, of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s struggling Social Democrat party (SPD), yesterday announced that harsher restrictions would be implemented across Germany’s 2,300-mile land border from September 16.
The scheme, which will last six months before review and enable authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, represents a significant extension of controls introduced last year on Germany’s borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
Now, borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Austria will also be subject to the restrictions.
Many European countries are supportive of more stringent EU-wide border restrictions to curb migration into the bloc.
But they are less enthused by Germany’s declaration it will start turning migrants back to neighbouring nations.
Austrian authorities have already declared they will not accept any migrants that Berlin attempts to force back across the border unless a formal agreement is reached.
‘There’s no room for manoeuvre there,’ Austria’s Foreign Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild. ‘I have directed the Head of the federal police to not allow any returns. Austria will not accept any persons rejected from Germany.’
Czech press meanwhile have said that new border policies represent a threat to the Schengen agreement and the principles of free movement within Europe.
Many Germans initially welcomed migrants when more than a million people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq came in 2015-16 after wars and instability in their home countries.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel – who famously declared in 2017 that Islam was ‘not the source of terrorism’ – opened the country’s borders to over a million asylum seekers in 2015.
The move was highly divisive, praised by many liberal commentators as a morally just, humanitarian policy and slammed as dangerous and short-sighted by more conservative mouthpieces.
But growing tensions over the number of migrants entering the country of 84 million people each year reached breaking point after Chancellor Scholz’s government automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion – even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.
The woes continued into 2023, when net migration figures stood at three-quarters of a million, and this year the SPD were forced to confront the issue following a series of violent attacks carried out by Islamists.
Berlin last year agreed tighter deportation rules and announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
Scholz then announced in June that authorities would resume flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
These restrictions have seen 30,000 migrants returned since October 2023 and seemed to have made a notable impact on number of asylum applications in Germany, with government statistics highlighting a 21.7% drop in January to August this year.
But the stricter controls set to be rolled out next week have already angered Austria, with more European countries likely to follow if German authorities start making formal requests for them to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.
Migrants fleeing the likes of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq typically cross into Turkey and flood into Europe via the Balkans, moving up into eastern and central Europe via what is known as the Eastern Mediterranean Corridor.
Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland are among the most frequented ‘transit’ countries by migrants and asylum seekers with Germany marked as their final destination.
Germany’s move could also face legal challenges if they endure beyond six months.
Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen area – which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland – are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.
Berlin told the European Commission that temporary measures are justified because of the ‘persistently high overall burden on Germany’ and ‘protection of internal security against the current threats of Islamist terrorism and cross-border crime’.
The German government has been facing increased pressure to respond to migration as a swell of support for parties on both sides of the political spectrum in recent regional elections left Scholz’s SPD floundering.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stormed to victory with 32.8% of the vote in the former East German state of Thuringia, the state election commissioner’s data showed, with the conservative CDU coming in second place with 23.6%.
That result marked the first time a party deemed far-right won a regional election in Germany since World War II.
Meanwhile, the fledgling far-left BSW party, named after its founder Sahra Wagenknecht who launched the outfit earlier this year, scooped incredible gains with 15.8% of votes.
In neighbouring Saxony, the AfD took home just over 30% of the vote, coming in a close second to the conservative CDU with 31.9%, while the BSW secured 11.8% of votes.
By comparison, Scholz’s ailing SPD party walked away with a measly 6.1% and 7.3% of votes in Thuringia and Saxony respectively, only just managing to scrape its way over the mandatory 5% hurdle needed to secure a place in the regional parliaments.
The AfD is also projected to scoop record numbers of votes in the next regional elections in Brandenburg in the coming weeks.
Despite the AfD’s and BSW’s fierce opposition when it comes to social and economic policy, they happen to share similar stances on several key issues that give the pro-EU Scholz and Brussels itself cause for concern.
Both parties are firm advocates against Germany’s longstanding support of uncontrolled immigration and are also highly critical of the EU, with the AfD going as far as to call for German sovereignty from the bloc it has described as a ‘failed project’.
The AfD in particular has seized upon a slew of recent extremist attacks to drum up support for its zero tolerance campaign.
A knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in June left one police officer dead and four other people wounded.
Last month, three people were killed in a knife attack in Soligen carried out by a Syrian asylum-seeker who claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State group.
And last week, police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate, fatally wounding him.
Authorities said they believe he was planning to attack the consulate on the 52nd anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The introduction of new border controls also comes after the conservative CDU/CSU parties piled yet more pressure on Scholz after holding an ’emergency meeting’ with its regional representatives to discuss stricter immigration policies.
At the end of last month Germany’s police union announced that participation in the Schengen agreement was making Germany’s security crisis even worse and must be abandoned immediately, piling pressure on the struggling SPD.
Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the Federal Police Union, has launched a fierce condemnation of Schengen, the EU’s hair-brained border-free scheme, in an interview with Focus magazine.
‘The crisis in Germany’s security is a direct consequence of Schengen’s ineffective policies. Schengen’s inability to manage migration effectively has put Germany’s safety at stake.’
‘Germany must realise the current failure of Schengen and either make a concerted effort to return to the current legal situation or terminate Schengen,’ Ostermann concluded, pointing to the rising crime rates in Germany which he claims is exacerbated by the migration crisis.
He said Schengen’s open borders have made it easier for criminals to operate across Europe, impacting Germany’s safety.
‘Schengen has failed to protect Germany from the influx of criminals, necessitating immediate action.’
‘We must continue to notify our internal borders because border controls, whose effectiveness has been proven, are no longer maintained under Schengen.
‘The failure of Schengen is evident in the increased crime rates, making it clear that changes are needed.’