Germany announces tougher border controls

The supposedly temporary measure is meant to address an anti-immigration backlash

Germany will reimpose passport controls on its land borders for at least the next six months, in order to curb “irregular migration,” the government in Berlin has said

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

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

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

Passport controls are scheduled to begin next Monday and last for six months, unless renewed by Berlin. According to Faeser, they are intended to crack down on people entering Germany without visas and address threats from “Islamist terror groups” and transnational organized crime.

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Germany ramped up controls on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland last year, in response to “a sharp increase in first-time asylum requests,” according to the state broadcaster DW. Those controls were also billed as temporary, but have been repeatedly extended.

Last month’s stabbing spree at a diversity festival in Solingen, when three people were killed and eight wounded, has triggered renewed debate among Germans about the mass migration from outside the EU. The suspect, a 26-year-old Syrian, had reportedly sought asylum in 2022.

The anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) parties made significant gains in the state elections in Thuringia and Saxony last week. The ruling coalition – which includes Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats – is facing another tough vote in Brandenburg later this month.

The government has reportedly been in discussions about tackling migration with the mainstream opposition parties, the Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU).

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