Germany has reintroduced temporary checks at all nine of its land borders in a move that has drawn criticism from several of its European partners but praise from the far right.
The embattled coalition government in Berlin said last week that checks already being carried out on its borders with Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland would be extended to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.
The decision came after a series of deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers, and historic successes by the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland party (AfD) in two crunch state elections in the east of the country.
Nancy Faeser, the country’s interior minister, said the border checks would curb migration and “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime,” but critics have denounced it as politically motivated and likely to be largely ineffective.
Europe’s passport-free Schengen zone, which includes 25 EU nations plus four others including Switzerland and Norway, allows free movement without border checks and is thought of as one of the bloc’s biggest achievements as well as a critical economic asset.
Temporary checks are allowed in exceptional circumstances to avert specific threats to internal security or public policy. Eight members currently impose them on selected borders, citing increased terror threats or pressure on asylum capacity.
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, was the first to openly criticise Germany’s decision, calling it “unacceptable from Poland’s viewpoint” and demanding more help from Berlin in securing the EU’s external borders rather than tighter internal controls.
Warsaw has proposed consultations with all EU member states bordering Germany to address a decision Tusk said was a result of the country’s “internal political situation” and could lead to “the de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale”.
Greece’s prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, said on Thursday it would be wrong to “move to a logic of ad hoc exemptions from the Schengen agreement, with border controls that will … hurt one of the fundamental achievements of the EU.”
The response, Mitsotakis said, “cannot be unilaterally scrapping Schengen”. Others, however, were more sanguine, with the Czech interior minister, Vit Rakusan, saying he did not expect much material change as checks would mostly be random.
Far-right leaders were jubilant in response to the news. Geert Wilders of the Dutch Freedom party (PVV) said Berlin’s decision was a “great idea” and asked when the Netherlands would follow suit, while the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbàn, said on X: “Welcome to the club.”
Marine Le Pen of France’s National Rally said her party had proposed a “double – external and internal border – system” in recent elections and been told it was not possible. “Now Germany is doing it,” she said. “When will France follow?”
Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party has praised Berlin’s decision. Orbàn’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyás, said laxity on the EU’s external borders combined with tougher internal border checks were combining to “destroy free movement”.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, whose divided three-party coalition is trailing far behind AfD and the centre-right opposition Christian Democrats (CDU) in the polls a year before federal elections, has defended the decision.
With days to go before another critical state election in Brandenburg which the AfD is expected to win, Scholz told parliament the move was necessary and the government would “continue with it, even though it is getting difficult with our neighbours”.
It is not yet clear what the impact of the increased border checks will be. Berlin has pledged to “coordinate closely with our neighbours … and keep the impact on everyday life in the border regions as low as possible”.
The interior ministry last week insisted the measures, scheduled to last an initial six months, would be in line with existing border controls – in other words, random spot checks or targeting specific vehicles based on police intelligence.
Freight industry representatives have said they believe the tighter checks should not lead to excessive tailbacks and consequent economic losses, but associations for cross-border workers have said they will be watching the situation closely.
More likely, analysts suggest, are rising tensions with Germany’s neighbours if the checks – along with plans to make it easier to turn people back directly at the border – lead to authorities returning many more people to the country they arrive from.
