The News
Germany will introduce land border checks from Sept. 16 that officials said are designed to curb irregular migration and bolster security against potential extremist threats.
The move comes amid domestic outcry over a fatal knife attack by a Syrian national in the city of Solingen whose claim for asylum had been rejected.
The far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany party used the attack to rally against “uncontrolled migration.”
The AfD has seen major gains in two state elections held last week. While German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party was widely expected not to perform well in those polls, the new border policy underscores Scholz’s need “to retake the initiative” on migration, Reuters wrote, ahead of another state election — in Brandenburg — where his party currently holds control.
SIGNALS
Some in Scholz’s coalition fear threats to border-free Europe
The border restrictions have so far mostly been met with quiet acceptance among Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s governing coalition, which has been under daily attack from conservatives about migration. But some members of Scholz’s center-left SPD and the Greens worry the policy threatens freedom of movement within the EU, Euractiv reported. It is also unclear whether a harder line on immigration will benefit the SPD electorally. “If the SPD moves to the right, it will lose the educated, urban population,” one expert told Der Spiegel, noting that this group accounts for more than two thirds of their voters. No one wants to openly oppose the policy for now, Table Media wrote, as the party faces potential collapse under the AfD in theBrandenburg election.
Neighbors react with frustration over ‘unacceptable’ policy
Germany’s interior ministry said the new limits are designed to increase the number of people sent back to the country they came from, but its immediate neighbors aren’t so sure. Austria’s interior minister said Vienna “will not accept people who are rejected from Germany,” emphasizing that “there is no room for maneuver.” Poland’s prime minister said the approach was “unacceptable from Poland’s point of view,” and called for “urgent consultations” with Germany’s other neighbors. A Dutch mayor whose town sits on the German border criticized the restrictions as “a panic reaction,” that could cause serious delays in regions where people typically cross the border several times a day.
Conservatives push for more restrictions
The policy announcement has done little to quell Germany’s conservatives. The center-right CDU called for “comprehensive” rejections of migrants at the border and despite being involved in talks with the government for a joint migration policy, the party’s negotiator said Tuesday that the ruling coalition’s proposals were “not extensive enough.” Even so, the government plans to drastically increase the number of refugees rejected at Germany’s border, sending asylum seekers to other EU states where possible, Der Spiegel reported. “There is hardly any debate in asylum and migration policy about whether Germany should still adhere to the European deportation rules,” a columnist for Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote, “only about how to somehow get around these rules,”