“The end of Schengen”: Germany’s new border controls endanger the unity of the EU | European Commission

Germany's decision to tighten controls at all its land borders appears to be primarily politically motivated. It is difficult to justify legally, is a serious blow to Europe's cherished freedom of movement and could severely test the unity of the EU.

Berlin announced on Monday that the controls that have been in place since 2015 at the border with Austria and since last year with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland will be extended next week to France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark.

The move is intended to curb migration and “protect against the acute dangers posed by Islamist terrorism and serious crime,” said Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.

The latest in a series of fatal knife attacks in Solingen last month, in which the suspects were asylum seekers, came just days before crucial state elections in eastern Germany, in which the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party won historic electoral victories in two federal states.

According to polls, migration is also the biggest concern of voters in Brandenburg, where elections are taking place in two weeks. Olaf Scholz's center-left SPD is forecast to come in behind the far-right party. And the Chancellor's ailing coalition appears to be heading for a crushing defeat in next year's federal elections.

“The government’s intention seems to be to symbolically show Germans and potential migrants that the latter are no longer wanted here,” says Marcus Engler of the German Center for Integration and Migration Research.

Faeser said the new controls would include a system that would allow more people to be turned back directly at the border, but declined to give details. Officials and diplomats in Brussels expressed their dismay, calling the move “transparent” and “obviously aimed at a domestic audience.”

Given Germany's central location in the EU and its status as the bloc's largest economy, the controls, which are set to come into force on September 16 for an initial six months, could have implications far beyond the country's voters.

The European Schengen Area, created in 1985 and which today includes 25 of the 27 EU member states and four others, including Switzerland and Norway, essentially allows the free movement of people between all states without border controls.

Temporary controls are permitted in emergency and exceptional circumstances to avert concrete threats to internal security or public order. They have typically been imposed after terrorist attacks, at major sporting events and during the pandemic.

But more and more often, European governments – often under pressure from right-wing extremist immigration rhetoric – are reintroducing controls without justifying them with concrete and specific threats or putting forward clear arguments as to how these could be contained through controls.

Although immigration policy and asylum procedures are decided at national level, freedom of movement in Europe is an easy target, argue many observers – and the demand to “regain control of the borders” makes for effective headlines.

In addition to Germany, Austria is one of the Schengen members that currently carries out controls at certain borders. The country is citing security threats related to Ukraine and pressure on the asylum authorities when checking people entering the country from Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Hungary.

Denmark is carrying out controls on land and sea transit from Germany, citing terrorist threats related to the war in the Gaza Strip and the risk of Russian espionage, and France is checking people entering from the Schengen area due to an increased terrorist threat.

Italy, Norway, Sweden, Slovenia and Finland also carry out border controls, citing terrorist activities, the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, the activities of the Russian secret service, increasing migration flows and organised crime in the Balkans as reasons for this.

As guarantor of the Schengen Agreement, the European Commission – which was informed of Germany's plans on Monday – has generally accepted without objection the Member States' justifications for reintroducing temporary controls.

Observers assume that Berlin's demand will also be taken into account, although – apart from an electoral threat from the anti-immigration extreme right – there seems to be little clear practical justification for controls at all nine of the country's borders.

The Commission said on Tuesday that member states were allowed to take such a step to counter “a serious threat”. However, the measures must be “necessary and proportionate” and “remain the absolute exception”.

The temporary German controls “represent a manifestly disproportionate violation of the principle of free movement in the Schengen area,” said Alberto Alemanno, professor of European law at HEC Paris.

“This is not feasible under EU law – but will that stop Scholz from continuing?” he asked. Christopher Wratil of the University of Vienna was even more scathing, accusing Berlin of “acting as if the AfD [already] in power”.

After today Wratil saidGerman politicians should stop telling me that anyone still follows EU law. “They want to wipe out Schengen with a single stroke of the pen – and they do so completely thoughtlessly.”

Others pointed to the economic value of the Schengen area. A report by the Bertelsmann Foundation estimated back in 2016 that reintroducing controls at internal borders would cost Europe around €470 billion (£397 billion) in lost growth over the next decade.

Gerald Knaus, chairman of the European Stability Initiative think tank, also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of the measure. “Internal border controls that are supposed to have any effect mean the end of Schengen,” Knaus said at X.

They would also require “nationwide border protection and fences around Germany,” and they would “fail if the neighbors are not interested in participating,” he said.

After the EU finally agreed earlier this year on a hard-fought reform of its asylum and migration laws that is not due to come into force until 2026, European unity could be put to a serious test if Germany asks its neighbors to take back large numbers of refugees.

Austria has already declared that it will refuse to take back migrants turned away at the German border. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, on the other hand, described Berlin's decision on Tuesday as “unacceptable” and called for urgent consultations.