The German authorities have announced that the country has decided to keep in place its internal border controls with Poland, Czechia, and Switzerland for another three months
Citing irregular migration and smuggling concerns, the Federal Minister of Interior Nancy Faeser said that border authorities will continue to carry out checks on the land border with Poland, Czechia, and Switzerland until June 15, 2024.
We are continuing the controls at our borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland for three more months until mid-June 2024. The Federal Police can, therefore, continue to use the entire package of stationary and mobile border police measures flexibly.
According to Minister Faeser, the extension of the measure is necessary to prevent irregular migration to Germany and detect people smugglers helping migrants reach the country through illegal routes.
The same stressed that the measures have proven to be effective so far as the Federal Police has arrested about 560 people smugglers at the land border with the three other EU countries since October.
In addition to the above-mentioned, Minister Faeser said that to minimise the side effects of the border measures with Poland, Czechia, and Switzerland, they are “paying great attention to commuters”.
We continue to pay great attention to keeping the impact on commuters and everyday life in the border regions as low as possible. We are, therefore, closely coordinating our measures with our neighbouring countries at all levels.
Data show that since October 16, 2023, when the internal border checks with Poland, Czechia, Switzerland, and Austria were initially introduced, the police have detected almost 23,000 unauthorised entries. During the same period, the police implemented 13,000 measures to prevent the entry of certain individuals into the country or terminate their right to residence.
As for the number of detections nationwide, data show that it fell from 21,000 in September 2023 to about 6,700 in January of this year. Moreover, during this same period, from September until January, a total of 564 people smugglers were arrested.
In addition to having internal border controls in place with Poland, Czechia, and Switzerland, Germany currently continues to keep them with Austria, too. The border controls with Austria will remain in place until May 11, 2024. Once this measure ends, the authorities might decide to extend it again, depending on the migration situation.
