Pressure is mounting on the German Chancellor over illegal migration. In an interview with ZDF television, Scholz announced that he intended to maintain border controls with neighboring countries for as long as possible.
Quoted by DW.com, he stressed that: “We must always do it within the framework of European law. But I can assure you that we will succeed.”
The Greens want to abolish random inspections
In July, Brandenburg Green politicians demanded an end to border controls with Poland. A press release from the Brandenburg Greens states that search operations to capture organised smugglers are more targeted and constitute much less interference with freedom of movement.
“Border controls can only be applied in accordance with EU law. Legal opinions and the 2022 ruling of the European Court of Justice show that this is not the case at the Polish border. This must be made clear: we need a fair distribution of refugees in Europe. Last but not least, controls are also unfriendly to the economy and represent an unnecessary burden on the region.”- said in a press release quoted by DW.com.
Controls at the Polish-German border
Let us recall: since October last year, stationary checks have been carried out at the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, and since September 2015 at the German-Austrian border.
“German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Federal Police President Dieter Romann also consider the border controls a success, especially in terms of arresting people smugglers. In Germany, this is usually how they are allowed to enter the country,” Deutsche Welle reports.
Bild recently revealed that there were hundreds of thousands of people who should not be in Germany. As Forsal.pl reported, according to data from the German Ministry of Internal Affairs, 71 Syrians arrived in Germany in 2022. Up to 10,000 people were previously denied the right to stay in the country and only 829 of them were successfully deported.
2023, the number of illegal crossings on the Polish-German border decreases
According to the Center for Oriental Studies, the number of illegal border crossings into Germany decreased by approximately 40 percent between mid-October and the end of November 2023.
“In the 30 days prior to the implementation of border controls with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland, a total of 18,492 illegal entries were recorded, while in the following month, until mid-November – 11,029. According to German services, there is a particularly noticeable decline in the number of attempts at such crossings on the German-Polish border: from 6,411 in the period before the start of surveillance to 2,795 in the period after (-56%),” says Kamil Frymark from the Center for Oriental Studies.
