2024-07-16 00:51:36
Following demands from the CDU/CSU and FDP
Faeser does not want to extend border controls
14.07.2024 – 21:06Reading time: 3 min.
During the European Football Championship, controls were tightened at all German external borders – this is due to end at the end of the week.
FDP parliamentary group leader Christian Dürr has spoken out in favor of extending controls at all German borders beyond the European Football Championship. Such controls mean that “we are very effective in apprehending those who want to enter the country illegally,” Dürr told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. The decision on this, however, lies with the SPD-led Federal Ministry of the Interior – and this rejected Dürr’s proposal. The controls will therefore expire on July 19.
The controls at the German borders during the European Championships were intended to be “only temporary and as a last resort,” a spokesman for the Federal Ministry of the Interior told Bild am Sonntag. Germany would have to notify the EU of further nationwide controls. However, this is not planned.
FDP parliamentary group leader Dürr, on the other hand, recommended maintaining border controls as a bridging measure until the planned EU asylum system is implemented. “If we have a system that completely protects Europe’s external borders, we can abolish controls on internal borders again,” he told the Funke newspapers. “But for the time being, it is a very effective instrument.”
According to the GdP police union, the federal police currently have neither the personnel nor the equipment nor sufficient resources to permanently control all German borders. “The border controls worked 100 percent during the European Championships,” GdP chairman Andreas Roßkopf told Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland (RND) on Saturday. However, it is “not sustainable in the long term to protect the borders with this intensity.”
The coalition partner Green Party also rejected the FDP’s proposal. Previous experience with border controls had shown “how gigantic the effort and how small the effect is,” said Green Party interior expert Marcel Emmerich to the Berlin “Tagesspiegel” on Sunday.
The special circumstances of the European Football Championship justified the controls – but there was nothing more to it, said the Green politician. “It is one thing to increase the pressure on hooligans, potential terrorists and other criminals with temporary border controls, and another to try to reduce migration for years with stationary controls along 2,000 kilometers of internal border.”
The Union, on the other hand, welcomed Dürr’s proposal. The FDP politician “understood that the security situation makes it necessary to control the German borders more closely beyond the European Football Championship,” explained the domestic policy spokesman for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Alexander Throm (CDU).
Thanks to the intensified controls by the Federal Police at all borders, around 150 people smugglers were arrested during the European Championships and around 3,200 people were prevented from entering the country, explained Throm. “These figures impressively demonstrate the value of border controls.” Even controlled borders “remain open borders,” he added.
Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) had notified the European Union of controls at all borders until July 19th due to the European Championship. After this period, there will continue to be temporary controls at the national borders with Austria, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland, as before.
According to Faeser, up to 22,000 federal police officers are on duty every day during the European Championships – at the borders and also in the tournament venues.
According to the Federal Police, around a third of the illegal entries were detected at the borders with France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Denmark, as well as in sea and air traffic. In future, the Federal Police will “use the instrument of undercover surveillance to combat cross-border crime with targeted controls,” the Federal Ministry of the Interior said in the “BamS” report. The Federal Police will then no longer be able to reject people at the border.