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As heard from government circles in Berlin on Monday, checks by the federal police directly at the border, as has been the case at the border with Austria since 2015, will also be possible at these border sections in the future. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is preparing a corresponding letter to the European Commission. The ‘Welt’ had reported this earlier.

Faeser had recently announced tightened controls near the eastern border and represented the legal opinion that the federal police could selectively stop vehicles directly at the border – for example if smuggling was suspected there. The Social Democratic minister rejected the demands of the CDU Interior Ministers of the states of Saxony and Brandenburg, Armin Schuster and Michael Stübgen, arguing, among other things, that anyone who applies for asylum at the border cannot usually be rejected.

However, stationary checks make it easier to catch smugglers, because they have often disappeared during border checks by the time the police arrest people who have entered the country illegally.

Rejections at internal Schengen borders are only legally permitted if the European Commission has previously been notified of the temporary reintroduction of border controls. However, rejections are only used in relatively few cases, for example if a foreigner is denied entry to the country or if he does not apply for asylum.

Although the principle of open internal borders actually applies in the Schengen area, several states have currently notified border controls. France, for example, has requested controls at its borders with Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland, citing terror risks and irregular migration via the Central Mediterranean Route and the so-called Balkan Route.

However, the French do not check everywhere around the clock, but rather selectively and depending on the situation. In the future, things will probably be similar on Germany’s borders with the Czech Republic, Poland and Switzerland.

Between the beginning of January and the end of September, 233,744 people applied for asylum in Germany for the first time, about 73 percent more than in the same period last year. Many municipalities see themselves at the border when it comes to the reception, reception and integration of refugees – also because more than a million war refugees have come to Germany from Ukraine since the start of the Russian war of aggression in February 2024. (sda/dpa)