Australian National Review – Germany announces stricter border controls

Germany will reintroduce passport checks at land borders over the next six months to “irregular migration,” the government in Berlin has said

Germany has a 3,700 km long land border with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. All members of the EU Schengen Zone.

“We are strengthening our internal security through concrete action and we are continuing our tough stance against illegal migration,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser announced the measure on Monday.

“We are doing everything we can to protect the people in our country against this,” added Faeser.

Passport checks will begin next Monday and will last for six months unless Berlin extends them. Faeser said they are intended to crack down on people entering Germany without a visa and to prevent threats of “Islamic terrorist groups” and transnational organized crime.

Germany tightened controls at its borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland last year in response to “a sharp increase in the number of first asylum applications,” according to state broadcaster DW. Those checks were also announced as temporary, but have been extended several times.

Last month’s stabbing at a diversity festival in Solingen, which killed three people and injured eight, has rekindled debate among Germans about mass migration from outside the EU. The suspect, a 26-year-old Syrian, is said to have applied for asylum in 2022.

The anti-immigration parties Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) made significant gains in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony last week. The governing coalition, which also includes Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats, faces another tough vote in Brandenburg later this month.

The government is reportedly in talks with the main opposition parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU), over how to tackle migration.

Immigrants make up an estimated 18% of Germany’s population, according to official estimates. Of these, almost 40% have lived in the country for less than 10 years.