German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser has ordered passport controls to be resumed along all German land borders in a bid to sharply curb the number of people entering the country without visas, government sources told dpa on Monday.
The border controls will go into effect on September 16 and are initially expected to remain in place for six months, sources said.
Faeser has informed the European Commission of the plans, according to dpa sources.
The border checks are intended both to limit irregular migration as well as address threats from Islamist terrorist groups and cross-border criminal organizations, according to the sources.
Long-standing debates over how to handle migrants seeking asylum in Germany have intensified in recent weeks after a deadly knife attack earlier this month in the western German city of Solingen.
The suspected attacker, a Syrian citizen, had evaded an order to be deported from Germany to Bulgaria, where he first entered the EU.
All of Germany's neighbours are fellow members of the Schengen Zone, which is normally supposed to allow control-free travel across all borders inside the bloc.
But in October 2023, Germany has already resumed some border controls along its frontiers with Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Poland to deter the movement of migrants into Germany.
Those border checks are officially on a temporary basis but have been repeatedly extended by Berlin. Similar controls on the border with Austria have been temporarily in place since September 2015.
The sources said that the current German coalition government has put together expanded plans to deny entry to some migrants at Germany's borders in line with EU law. This follows demands for such steps from the conservative CDU/CSU opposition bloc.
Sources said that Faeser has communicated her proposals to the opposition and requested confidential talks on the subject.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz called for consultations with the CDU/CSU as well as the leaders of Germany's 16 federal states in the wake of the Solingen stabbings, which killed three people and wounded several others.
Sources said further cross-party talks could take place on Tuesday.
Another knife attack in May in the city of Mannheim also caused outrage and horror. An Afghan man wounded five members of the anti-Islam group Pax Europa and killed a policeman.
Further details on the proposal were not initially disclosed. Currently, asylum seekers are only rejected at German land borders in certain limited cases, such as if someone is banned from entering the country or chooses not apply for asylum.
According to the Interior Ministry, more than 30,000 people have been turned back since October, when Germany expanded the current stationary border controls.
Some proposals discussed in recent weeks include denying entry to undocumented foreigners or those who have already filed a request for asylum in another country.
Bavaria's conservative state premier, Markus Söder, reiterated demands that German guards turn away migrants at the borders in a speech on Monday to local political leaders.
"We must massively reduce immigration," Söder said. "This must be solved now."
Söder also called for large-scale efforts to deport people from Germany whose asylum claims have been denied or who otherwise have no right to remain in the country.
At a separate event on Monday, Finance Minister Christian Lindner also argued that the government has a responsibility to deliver solutions on migration.
Lindner, who leads the free-market liberal Free Democrats (FDP), said it is of "paramount interest" that a cross-party solution be found to manage migration into Germany.
The Greens, who are also part of Scholz's three-party coalition, have been more hesitant to take steps that could curb the ability of those seeking asylum to find shelter in Germany.
Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, a Green, warned in a speech on Monday against jeopardizing a delicate EU-wide compromise on asylum policy by adopting conservative opposition demands for turning back migrants at the German border.
After years of difficult EU negotiations, the German government had done everything it could "to get a common European asylum system off the ground in Europe," Baerbock said on Monday, referring to a deal to overhaul the Common European Asylum System (CEAS).
Local News
