A Swedish politician has slammed former German Chancellor Angela Merkel for introducing ‘mad’ immigration policies just days after Germany’s government it would introduce strict controls along its land borders.
Interior minister Nancy Faeser, of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s struggling Social Democrat party (SPD), announced Monday that harsher restrictions would be implemented across Germany’s 2,300-mile land border from September 16.
The drastic move represents the first time controls have been placed on all the country’s borders since the creation of the Schengen Area in the 1990s.
It also sparked an outcry from a slew of European leaders and officials, many of whom said it goes against the EU’s principle of free movement on the continent and implored Germany to work on securing the bloc’s external borders – not simply push migrants back into neighbouring countries.
Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers of the Sweden Democrats party told MailOnline: ‘If we don’t secure the external border, then internal border controls will become the norm.
‘I’ve said this for years. That a left-liberal German government re-institutes border checks highlights the madness of Merkel’s policy and that the debate in Europe has shifted.
‘Citizens want safety and security, not mass migration and chaos.’
German Chancellor Angela Merkel poses for a selfie with Anas Modamani, a refugee from Syria, after she visited the AWO Refugium Askanierring shelter for migrants and refugees on September 10, 2015 in Berlin
Officers of the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) check a migrant near Forst, eastern Germany
The government has justified the strict border controls, claiming they contribute to ‘the protection of internal security against the current threats of Islamist terrorism and cross-border crime’ (Afghan migrant pictured in knife attack in Mannheim)
Swedish MEP Charlie Weimers of the Sweden Democrats party told MailOnline: ‘If we don’t secure the external border then internal border controls will become the norm’
The governor of struggling German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is bringing in border restrictions from Monday
The new scheme, which will last six months before review and enable authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, represents a significant extension of controls introduced last year on Germany’s borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
Now, borders with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Austria will also be subject to the restrictions from Monday.
Under EU rules, countries in the Schengen area – which encompasses all of the bloc bar Cyprus and Ireland – are only allowed to introduce border checks as a last resort to avert threats to internal security or public policy.
Berlin told the European Commission that temporary measures are justified because of the ‘persistently high overall burden on Germany’ and ‘protection of internal security against the current threats of Islamist terrorism and cross-border crime’.
The German government also this week announced proposals to toughen up the implementation of EU rules on asylum, including detaining seekers while authorities determine whether Germany is responsible for processing their cases.
It did, however, reject measures requested by the opposition conservatives to automatically reject asylum seekers at the borders, which it and others deemed to be contrary to EU law.
Many European countries are supportive of more stringent EU-wide border restrictions to curb migration into the bloc.
But they are less enthused by Germany’s declaration it will start turning some migrants back to neighbouring nations.
Austrian authorities declared they will not accept any migrants that Berlin attempts to force back across the border without a formal agreement.
‘There’s no room for manoeuvre there,’ Austria’s Foreign Minister Gerhard Karner told Bild. ‘I have directed the Head of the federal police to not allow any returns. Austria will not accept any persons rejected from Germany.’
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk slammed the measures as ‘unacceptable’, saying his country would consult with the other nations impacted.
‘These kinds of actions are unacceptable from Poland’s point of view,’ Tusk said at a televised event in Warsaw. ‘Rather than greater controls of our border, Poland needs greater participation of countries, including Germany, in guarding and securing the European Union’s external borders,’ he added.
Czech press meanwhile have said that new border policies represent a threat to the Schengen agreement and the principles of free movement within Europe.
Not all of Germany’s European partners reacted in anger to the announcement, however, with Dutch hard-right politician Geert Wilders praising Berlin’s move and telling reporters ‘the sooner, the better’ when asked about border controls.
And Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X yesterday: ‘Germany has decided to impose strict border controls to stop illegal migration.
‘Chancellor Scholz, welcome to the club! #StopMigration’.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pictured recording her new year’s address at the Chancellery on December 30, 2015 in Berlin, Germany, after announcing the country would take in more than a million refugees
In this Sept. 4, 2015 file photo a migrant holds up a poster of German Chancellor Angela Merkel before starting a march out of Budapest, Hungary, towards Austria
Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s struggling Social Democrat party (SPD) announced Monday that from September 16, harsher restrictions would be implemented across Germany’s 2,300-mile land border
A group of migrants waits on the side of the road as they are controlled by officers of the German Federal Police (Bundespolizei) near Forst, eastern Germany
Many Germans initially welcomed migrants when more than a million people from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq came in 2015-16 after wars and instability in their home countries.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel – who famously declared in 2017 that Islam was ‘not the source of terrorism’ – opened the country’s borders to over a million asylum seekers in 2015.
The move was highly divisive, praised by many liberal commentators as a morally just, humanitarian policy and slammed as dangerous and short-sighted by more conservative mouthpieces.
But growing tensions over the number of migrants entering the country of 84 million people each year reached breaking point after Chancellor Scholz’s government automatically granted asylum to around a million Ukrainians fleeing Russia’s 2022 invasion – even as Germany was struggling through an energy and economic crisis.
The woes continued into 2023, when net migration figures stood at three-quarters of a million, and this year the SPD was forced to confront the issue following a series of violent attacks carried out by Islamists.
Berlin last year agreed harsher deportation rules and announced stricter controls on its land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
Scholz then announced in June that authorities would resume flying convicted criminals of Afghan nationality to their home country for the first time since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
These restrictions have seen 30,000 migrants returned since October 2023 and seemed to have made a notable impact on the number of asylum applications in Germany, with government statistics highlighting a 21.7% drop from January to August this year.
But the stricter controls set to be rolled out next week will likely spark widespread outcry on the continent if German authorities start making formal requests for neighbouring countries to take back substantial numbers of asylum seekers and migrants.
Those fleeing the likes of Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq typically cross into Turkey and flood into Europe via the Balkans, moving up into eastern and central Europe via what is known as the Eastern Mediterranean Corridor.
Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland are among the most frequented ‘transit’ countries by migrants and asylum seekers travelling to Germany.
Far-right protesters hold a banner reading ‘remigration now’ as they march through the streets of Solingen, following a stabbing rampage, on August 26
Right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) top candidate Bjoern Hoecke gives thumbs up on the day of the Thuringia state election in Erfurt, Germany, September 1, 2024
A 26-year-old Syrian man, who is the suspect in custody for a stabbing rampage in the western German city of Solingen in which several individuals were killed, is escorted by police as he leaves the Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe, Germany, August 25, 2024
Both AfD and BSW parties are firm advocates against Germany’s longstanding support of uncontrolled immigration
The German government has been facing increased pressure to respond to migration as a swell of support for parties on both sides of the political spectrum in recent regional elections left Scholz’s SPD floundering.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) stormed to victory with 32.8% of the vote in the former East German state of Thuringia, the state election commissioner’s data showed, with the conservative CDU coming in second place with 23.6%.
That result marked the first time a party deemed far-right won a regional election in Germany since World War II.
Meanwhile, the fledgling far-left BSW party, named after its founder Sahra Wagenknecht who launched the outfit earlier this year, scooped incredible gains with 15.8% of votes.
In neighbouring Saxony, the AfD took home just over 30% of the vote, coming in a close second to the conservative CDU with 31.9%, while the BSW secured 11.8% of votes.
By comparison, Scholz’s ailing SPD party walked away with a measly 6.1% and 7.3% of votes in Thuringia and Saxony respectively, only just managing to scrape its way over the mandatory 5% hurdle needed to secure a place in the regional parliaments.
The AfD is also projected to scoop record numbers of votes in the next regional elections in Brandenburg in the coming weeks.
Despite the AfD’s and BSW’s fierce opposition when it comes to social and economic policy, they happen to share similar stances on several key issues that give the pro-EU Scholz and Brussels itself cause for concern.
Both parties are firm advocates against Germany’s longstanding support of uncontrolled immigration and are also highly critical of the EU, with the AfD going as far as to call for German sovereignty from the bloc it has described as a ‘failed project’.
The AfD in particular has seized upon a slew of recent extremist attacks to drum up support for its zero tolerance campaign.
A knife attack by an Afghan immigrant in June left one police officer dead and four other people wounded.
Last month, three people were killed in a knife attack in Soligen carried out by a Syrian asylum-seeker who claimed to be inspired by the Islamic State group.
And last week, police in Munich exchanged fire with a gunman near the Israeli Consulate, fatally wounding him.
Authorities said they believe he was planning to attack the consulate on the 52nd anniversary of the attack on the 1972 Munich Olympics.
The introduction of new border controls also comes after the conservative CDU/CSU parties piled yet more pressure on Scholz after holding an ’emergency meeting’ with its regional representatives to discuss stricter immigration policies.
Protesters are seen in Mannheim’s city square after a stabbing attack earlier this year
ISIS released a photo of the militant who carried out a mass stabbing attack at a festival in Solingen and killed three people
At the end of last month Germany’s police union announced that participation in the Schengen agreement was making Germany’s security crisis even worse and must be abandoned immediately, piling pressure on the struggling SPD.
Manuel Ostermann, deputy federal chairman of the Federal Police Union, has launched a fierce condemnation of Schengen, the EU’s hair-brained border-free scheme, in an interview with Focus magazine.
‘The crisis in Germany’s security is a direct consequence of Schengen’s ineffective policies. Schengen’s inability to manage migration effectively has put Germany’s safety at stake.’
‘Germany must realise the current failure of Schengen and either make a concerted effort to return to the current legal situation or terminate Schengen,’ Ostermann concluded, pointing to the rising crime rates in Germany which he claims is exacerbated by the migration crisis.
He said Schengen’s open borders have made it easier for criminals to operate across Europe, impacting Germany’s safety.
‘Schengen has failed to protect Germany from the influx of criminals, necessitating immediate action.’
‘We must continue to notify our internal borders because border controls, whose effectiveness has been proven, are no longer maintained under Schengen.
‘The failure of Schengen is evident in the increased crime rates, making it clear that changes are needed.’
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