By Alexander Ratz and Sarah Marsh
BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s government has announced plans to introduce tougher controls at all of the country’s land borders in what it says is an effort to combat illegal migration and protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said on Monday that controls within Europe’s Schengen zone, normally a vast area of ​​free movement, will begin on September 16 and initially last for six months.
The government has also developed a scheme that would allow authorities to turn away more migrants at German borders, Faeser said, without elaborating on the controversial and legally dangerous move.
The restrictions are part of a series of measures Germany has taken in recent years to toughen its stance on illegal migration following a surge in arrivals, particularly from people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s government is trying to reverse the initiative from the far-right and conservative opposition, which has seen support grow as it addresses voter concerns about expanded public services, integration and security.
“We are strengthening internal security and continuing our tough line against illegal migration,” Faeser said, noting that the government had informed the European Commission and neighboring countries about the planned controls.
Recent fatal knife attacks in which the suspects are asylum seekers have raised concerns about immigration. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for a knife attack in August in the western city of Solingen that killed three people.
The AfD earlier this month became the first far-right party to win state elections in Thuringia since World War II after campaigning hard on migration.
Polls show that voters in the state of Brandenburg, which will hold elections in two weeks, are also worried about it.
Scholz and Faeser’s center-left Social Democrats (SPD) are fighting to retain control of the government there in a vote seen as a test of the SPD’s strength ahead of next year’s federal election.
“The government’s intention seems to be to symbolically show Germans and potential migrants that they are no longer wanted here,” said Markus Engler of the German Center for Integration and Migration Studies.
A TEST FOR EUROPE
After hosting more than a million people fleeing war-torn countries such as Syria during the 2015/2016 migrant crisis, Germany has faced a backlash, migration experts say.
It reached a tipping point in the country of 84 million people after it granted automatic asylum to nearly a million Ukrainians fleeing a 2022 Russian invasion as Germany grapples with an energy and economic crisis.
Since then, the German government has agreed to stricter deportation rules and has resumed flying convicted criminals of Afghan origin to their country, although it halted deportations after the Taliban took power in 2021 due to human rights concerns.
Last year, Berlin also announced tighter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. On Monday, border controls with Austria allowed the return of 30,000 migrants since October 2023.
Faeser said the new model would allow the government to claw back more — but he couldn’t talk about the model before confidential talks with the Conservatives.
The controls could test European unity if they lead German authorities to demand that other countries take back large numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.
Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen zone, which includes the entire bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland, are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to prevent threats to internal security or public policy.
Germany shares over 3,700 km (2,300 mi) of land borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland.
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner told the Bild newspaper on Monday that his country would not accept any migrants left at the border by Germany.
“There’s no room for maneuver there,” he said.
Susan Fratzke at the Migration Policy Institute said the measures may not immediately result in more migrants being turned back across the border, but they could result in more returns to other European countries and act as a deterrent.
According to government statistics, the number of asylum applications in Germany has already fallen by 21.7% in the first eight months of the year.
