{"id":388739,"date":"2024-09-10T18:51:44","date_gmt":"2024-09-10T16:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2024\/09\/10\/germania-controlli-confini-migranti\/"},"modified":"2024-09-13T19:10:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T17:10:22","slug":"germany-wants-to-close-borders-to-curb-irregular-immigration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2024\/09\/10\/germany-wants-to-close-borders-to-curb-irregular-immigration\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany wants to close borders to curb irregular immigration"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels – Perhaps it is the effect of the victory of the ultra-right in the eastern L\u00e4nder<\/i><\/strong>, which has hardened the rhetoric of the other political forces on immigration<\/strong> and is impacting party placements ahead of next year’s legislative elections<\/strong>. Perhaps it is an attempt to distract public opinion from the economic difficulties<\/strong>.\u00a0The fact is that, in Germany, even\u00a0the centre-left government is closing its land borders<\/strong>\u00a0in an attempt to\u00a0limit irregular immigration<\/strong>\u00a0from other EU member states.<\/span><\/p>\n

Berlin’s Interior Minister Nancy Faeser<\/strong> announced Monday (Sept. 9) that starting next Sept. 16,\u00a0controls along all country land borders<\/strong> will be put in place<\/a>\u00a0for\u00a0six months<\/strong><\/span>. The stated goal of the government, which relies on the “semaphore”\u00a0<\/strong>coalition between Social Democrats (SPD), Greens and Liberals (FDP), is to control irregular migration flows<\/strong> more effectively and\u00a0protect the population from a wave of “Islamic extremism<\/strong>” believed to be behind a series of attacks.\u200b<\/span><\/p>\n

“Until we achieve a\u00a0strong protection of the EU’s external borders<\/strong> with the new Common European Asylum System<\/strong>, we need to strengthen controls at our national borders<\/strong>,” Faeser said, stressing that “these controls will also allow effective refoulement<\/strong>” of migrants to the countries from which they have crossed (or attempted to cross) German borders. The Interior Minister added that the Commission and the European partners were informed before the decision. Predictably, however,\u00a0these\u00a0European partners did not take it too well. On Monday, Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner<\/strong> said that Vienna does not intend to take in migrants rejected<\/strong> by Berlin,\u00a0\u00a0echoing<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/span>similar protests raised by Brussels<\/strong>, Luxembourg<\/strong>, Prague<\/strong> and Warsaw<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Actually, it is the nationwide extension of a series of controls already in place on some borders<\/strong>: Austria<\/strong> (in effect until next November), Czechia<\/strong>, Poland<\/strong> and Switzerland<\/strong> (until December). The measures already in effect will thus be extended<\/strong>, even after their original expiration, and coordinated to end up simultaneously\u00a0with those imposed on the remaining five states bordering Germany: Belgium<\/strong>, Denmark<\/strong>, France<\/strong>, Luxembourg<\/strong> and the\u00a0Netherlands<\/strong>. This is yet another unilateral suspension<\/strong> of the rules of the Schengen space<\/strong>, which is provided for in the treaties in cases of threat to the public order or internal security<\/strong> of member states. According to Faeser, since Berlin introduced partial controls at its borders in October 2023, about 30 thousand migrants<\/strong> have been turned back<\/strong>, and she\u00a0predicted an increase in the number of rejections after implementing the new measures.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More importantly, it is a\u00a0political game of enormous significance<\/strong>\u00a0in Germany, where\u00a0next year, citizens will go back to the polls to elect the parliament<\/strong>\u00a0and, thus, the government.<\/span>\u00a0The overwhelming success<\/a>, however widely heralded, of the xenophobic far-right Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland<\/i> (AfD)<\/strong> in the recent regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony<\/strong>\u2014as well as the excellent placing that polls attribute to it not only for the vote in Brandenburg<\/strong> in two weeks’ time but also for the legislative elections<\/strong> scheduled for September 2025<\/strong> (around 28 and 17 per cent, respectively)\u2014is, in fact, pushing all the mainstream parties to progressively stricter positions on migration<\/strong>, the timeless workhorse of hard-line conservatives.<\/p>\n

Therefore, f<\/span>rom the Christian Democrats of the CDU\/CSU<\/strong> to the new phenomenon of the red-brown left<\/a>, the BSW of Sahra Wagenknecht<\/strong>, all are calling for a new crackdown on migration management, especially in the aftermath of the Solingen attack<\/strong> last August (claimed by the Islamic State<\/strong>), which along with other recent bloody events (for which the Islamic State<\/strong> matrix is only suspected for now) has deeply shaken public opinion<\/strong>.\u00a0After all, the\u00a0total closure of borders<\/strong>\u00a0and measures for the\u00a0complete<\/strong>\u00a0refoulement of migrants<\/strong> is a demand that the leader of the CDU himself,\u00a0Friedrich Merz<\/strong>, has been making for some time.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, a political earthquake from which not even the SPD, the Social Democratic party of Chancellor Olaf Scholz<\/strong> (and of which Faeser is also a member), has not been immune, having gone so far as to propose the total\u2014albeit temporary\u2014closure of borders. Something that, until not too long ago, was normal to hear from conservative and ultranationalist leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orb\u00e1n. Not even all the members of the governing coalition in Berlin agree on the point: back in August, a group of Greens<\/strong> exponents\u00a0publicly<\/a><\/span>\u00a0requested<\/a> the EU Commission to suspend the controls already in place<\/strong>, bringing the cracks within the German executive<\/strong> into the open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With one year to go before the Bundestag elections, the discourse on immigrant entry onto German soil is heating up. And in Berlin, the Social Democrats are announcing border closures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":388707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"0","show_view_counter":"0","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":"","hide":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[26267,28952,28953,26268,28056,28777],"class_list":["post-388739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-migration-irregular-en","tag-nancy-faeser-en","tag-olaf-scholz-en","tag-area-schengen-en","tag-spazio-schengen-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388739"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388815,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388739\/revisions\/388815"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}