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Neighbour countries criticise German decision to close the borders

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has denounced as "unacceptable" Germany's decision to extend temporary controls to all its land borders as part of its response to irregular migration.

He is one of several figures from neighbouring countries to criticise the move. Restrictions already in place at some of Germany's land borders will apply from next Monday with France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark.

The head of a Dutch-German alliance of border communities said it was a "panic reaction", while Austria's interior minister stressed it would not be take in anyone turned away by Germany.

However, Germany's opposition conservatives said Berlin had not gone far enough.

 

 

Neighbours criticise German move to extend border controls

2 hours ago
Paul Kirby
BBC News

 

Maja Hitij/Getty Images German federal police watch over cars arriving at the German-Polish border on September 10, 2024 in Frankfurt an der Oder, GermanMaja Hitij/Getty Images
Poland has seen an influx in irregular migrants entering its country en route to Germany

 

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has denounced as "unacceptable" Germany's decision to extend temporary controls to all its land borders as part of its response to irregular migration.

He is one of several figures from neighbouring countries to criticise the move. Restrictions already in place at some of Germany's land borders will apply from next Monday with France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark.

The head of a Dutch-German alliance of border communities said it was a "panic reaction", while Austria's interior minister stressed it would not be take in anyone turned away by Germany.

However, Germany's opposition conservatives said Berlin had not gone far enough.

The three-parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government have come under increasing pressure to respond to poor results in state elections in eastern Germany where immigration was the biggest issue.

In Thuringia, the far-right Alternative for Germany came first, and another election is on the horizon in less than two weeks in Brandenburg.

The migration debate has been ignited by the killing of three people at a festival in Solingen in western Germany where a Syrian failed asylum seeker who should have been deported was arrested.

The conservative CDU/CSU parties said initially they would take part in a migration summit of the government and state leaders on Tuesday, aimed at reaching an agreement on the next steps.

But they pulled out, accusing the government of not taking seriously conservative proposals to reject asylum seekers at the border.

"Clearly the federal government is hopelessly divided internally and cannot agree on effective measures," said CDU leader Friedrich Merz.

Germany and all its neighbours are part of the Schengen border-free zone and under European Union rules temporary controls are allowed "as a last resort measure, in exceptional situations" for up to six months .

 

Neighbour countries criticise German decision to close the borders

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has denounced as "unacceptable" Germany's decision to extend temporary controls to all its land borders as part of its response to irregular migration.

He is one of several figures from neighbouring countries to criticise the move. Restrictions already in place at some of Germany's land borders will apply from next Monday with France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Denmark.

The head of a Dutch-German alliance of border communities said it was a "panic reaction", while Austria's interior minister stressed it would not be take in anyone turned away by Germany.

However, Germany's opposition conservatives said Berlin had not gone far enough.

The end of Schengen

Germany’s decision to tighten controls at every one of its land borders seems driven chiefly by politics, is difficult to justify in law, deals a heavy blow to Europe’s prized free movement and could severely test EU unity.

Berlin said on Monday that controls in place at its border with Austria since 2015, and since last year with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, would be extended next week to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The move would curb migration and “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime,” said Nancy Faeser, the interior minister.

The most recent in a series of deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers, in Solingen last month, came days before crunch regional elections in eastern Germany that resulted in the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party scoring historic successes in two states

Polls show migration is also voters’ biggest concern in Brandenburg, which holds its own elections in a fortnight – with Olaf Scholz’s centre-left Social Democratic party forecast to finish behind the far-right party – and the chancellor’s ailing coalition seems to be heading toward a crushing defeat in federal elections next year.

“The intention of the government seems to be to show symbolically to Germans and to potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” said Marcus Engler of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research.

 

said the new controls would include a scheme allowing more people to be turned back directly at the border, but declined to go into detail. Officials and diplomats in Brussels have expressed dismay, calling the move “transparent” and “obviously aimed at a domestic audience”.

Germany’s central position in the EU and its status as the bloc’s largest economy, mean the controls, due to come into force on 16 September for an initial six months, could have an impact that reaches far beyond the country’s voters.

In principle, Europe’s passport-free Schengen area, which was created in 1985 and now includes 25 of the 27 EU member states plus four others including Switzerland and Norway, allows free movement between them all without border controls.

Temporary checks are allowed in emergencies and exceptional circumstances to avert specific threats to internal security or public policy, and have typically been imposed after terror attacks, for major sports events and during the pandemic.

Increasingly, however, European governments, often under pressure from far-right rhetoric on immigration, have reimposed checks without the justification of concrete and specific threats, or clear arguments as to how controls can help mitigate them.

Schengen e' morta ma EU non si sente sicura

C'era una volta lo spazio Schengen, territorio di libera circolazione delle persone vasto oltre 4 milioni di chilometri quadrati, manifestazione del sogno di un’Unione europea priva di frontiere interne. C’è, oggi, un massiccio ritorno ai controlli “temporanei” alle frontiere, con almeno una decina di Paesi che negli ultimi mesi hanno reintrodotto misure considerate dagli accordi di Schengen come “ultima risorsa” per scongiurare gravi minacce alla sicurezza interna o all'ordine pubblico.

Schengen è morta e l'Europa non si sente tanto bene

Il ritorno dei controlli alle frontiere da parte della Germania deflagra a Bruxelles e rischia di scatenare un gigantesco effetto domino. Austria, Polonia e Olanda pronti a fare altrettanto, e non sono i soli

Con Ius scholae 48 mila bambino potrebbero diventare Italiani

315.906 minori stranieri che frequentano la scuola primaria, "4 su 5 provengono da un Paese extra Ue e circa il 70% è nato in Italia" e con lo Ius Scholae "48mila bambini potrebbero acquisire il diritto alla cittadinanza italiana".

 

E' quanto emerge da uno studio della Svimez, l'Associazione per lo sviluppo dell'industria nel Mezzogiorno, su dati del ministero dell'Istruzione e del Merito e Istat.