After long hesitation, the German government has decided to return stationary border control points on additional sections of the border. The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Nancy Feather, informed the European Commission about the introduction of temporary internal border control at the land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
As reported by the Welt publication, border control was initially introduced for 10 days starting on October 16, but may be extended for a total of up to two months. At the same time, the control at the land border with Austria, which has been in effect since 2015, will be extended again for another six months.
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, this means that the Federal Police can now use the same resources on the borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland that it has long used on the border with Austria.
It is noted that over the past few weeks, veiled searches have been significantly intensified throughout the border zone, and joint patrols with the border police of Poland and the Czech Republic are carried out on their territory. There is already a joint action plan with Switzerland.
“The business of smugglers is becoming more and more brutal and unscrupulous. The horrific death of seven people who were smuggled across the German-Austrian border on Friday night deeply shocked us,” Feser said.
She added that Germany needs “effective restrictions on illegal migration to ease the burden on our municipalities.”
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, since the beginning of this year, the federal police have detected about 98,000 unauthorized entries into Germany. In 2022, there were a total of about 92 thousand of them.