The German authorities have announced that the country will introduce temporary internal border controls at all its land borders.
As the Minister of Interior of Germany Nancy Faeser revealed, the controls at all borders will begin on September 16, and they will initially remain in place for a period of six months, Schengen.News reports.
By introducing border controls, Germany wants to protect national security as well as curb the number of foreigners attempting to enter the country without valid visas and irregular migration in general.
Commenting on the move, Minister Faeser said that checks are especially important now that the country has been recording high numbers of threats from Islamist terror groups.
While the border controls have not yet become effective, Minister Faeser explained that the country has already informed the EU Commission about this decision.
Once the checks enter into force, controls will apply to the land borders with Austria, Belgium, Czechia, France, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, and Switzerland. Germany shares a more than 3,700 km long border with these nine countries.
Germany has been maintaining border controls with Austria, Czechia, Poland and Switzerland for some time now.
The measures were initially intended for a short period of time. However, following increased irregular migration and security concerns, the country continuously prolonged this measure.
The border measures were set to remain effective until mid-December for all countries except Austria, but now that Germany has decided to introduce another measure, the checks will be in place until mid-March.
While Germany sees the measure as necessary, some of its neighbouring countries have not been very happy about the move.
The Austrian Minister of Interior, Gerhard Karner, said that Austria would not take in any migrants rejected by Germany, stressing that “there’s no room for manoeuvre there”.
The spokesperson of the Czech Ministry of Interior, Hana Malá, also previously said that the measures could have a negative impact. Malá said that the further extension of border controls by Germany would lead to a domino effect of checks throughout the Schengen Area.
In addition, the spokesperson said that the checks would also cause delays at the border.
Source : https://schengen.news/germany-to-introduce-border-controls-at-all-land-borders-on-september-16/
