Migration via Poland: Faeser promises stronger border protection – without stationary controls

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Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser at a meeting with Polish Deputy Minister of the Interior Bartosz Grodecki at the Polish border town of Świecko: "Tackling the new migratory pressure together"

Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa

In the debate on how to deal with the increasing number of refugees, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) wants to continue to refrain from permanently stationed border controls at the german-Polish border. In the future, however, more police officers will generally be deployed there, the minister announced during a visit to a centre in the Polish border town of Świecko.

At the border with the Czech Republic, too, it has been possible in recent months to reduce the very high migration figures without stationary border controls. To this end, the forces there have been strengthened. This is now also planned on the border with Poland. She is sure "that we will now be able to master the new migratory pressure together," said Faeser. According to the Reuters news agency, she spoke, especially with regard to Belarus, of a migratory pressure that "is also a bit of controlled migratory pressure".

Faeser points to massive disruptions in border traffic

Specifically, Faeser cited an additional personnel expenditure of "several hundreds" of the Federal Police. This step helps more than stationary border controls. The close relationship between Germany and Poland in everyday life would be "massively disturbed" by such controls, Faeser said. In addition, the economic ties are much closer than, for example, on the border with Austria, where stationary border controls have been carried out for a long time.

CDU politicians, including the interior ministers of Brandenburg and Saxony, Michael Stübgen and Armin Schuster, had recently called for firm controls on the border with Poland.

According to the European statistics agency last week, more than 40 percent more initial applications for asylum were made in the European Union (EU) at the beginning of the year than a year ago. In Germany, the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (Bamf) registered 110,516 first-time asylum applications in the first four months of the year, a good 78 percent more than in the previous year. Most of the applicants came from Syria and Afghanistan.

At the refugee summit on 10 May, the federal and state governments agreed to introduce stationary controls, such as at the border with Austria, at other borders between Germany and neighbouring countries, depending on the situation.

Instead, Faeser wants to intensify the veil search there – identity checks independent of suspicion and occasion. The number of unauthorized entries via Poland has recently risen significantly. Brandenburg's CDU parliamentary group leader Jan Redmann described the way to strengthen the veil search on Tuesday as completely inadequate.

fek/dpa/Reuters