Once a week, ex-rulers Eberhard Diepgen (CDU) and Walter Momper (SPD) discuss topics that move the capital in the BZ Berlin. Today it is about possible controls at the German-Polish border.
Eberhard Diepgen: Yes, unfortunately there is no other way
What becomes too much becomes too much. Of course, this old wisdom also applies to illegal immigration to Germany.
It’s not about a few people who make their way to Europe and especially Germany in search of a better life. They can, limited in number, perhaps be integrated into our labor market after careful examination. But there are too many.
In April alone, over 1,000 are said to have come to us illegally from all over the world via Poland.
Hard to assume that there will be fewer in the next few months. The communities are overwhelmed with the accommodation and care. We hear about the problems in schools and in the social and health care system every day. Also by many people who only have a temporary right of residence but cannot be sent back to their homeland. Controls and rejections at the German borders can help.
The EU wants to be a region of free movement. Without border controls to neighboring countries. That was the dream. However, it failed to secure its external borders.
Now we are faced with the dilemma and have to help out with the internal borders of the EU. I do not like this. But as long as the EU does not adequately secure the external borders, ensure a reasonable distribution of refugees among the various member countries and allow deportations to their home countries, there is no alternative.
The Federal Minister of the Interior and the federal states are arguing about HOW the controls should be implemented.
The minister does not want to impede trade across the border too much. That’s right. The cities on both sides of the Oder and Neisse are largely a unit. But the controls have to work. The argument about stationary border controls or more control strips with additional staff does not seem very effective.
You need both – depending on the local conditions.
Walter Momper: Yes, more federal police officers are helping
We need more controls at the German-Polish border, there is no other way. This is the only way to make it possible for refugees to be rejected from Poland.
What Brandenburg Interior Minister Michael Stübgen wants to achieve is the same strong border protection as in Bavaria. Especially since the refugee pressure in Brandenburg is now even higher than in Bavaria.
The Federal Minister of the Interior, Nancy Faeser, reiterated her no to permanently stationed border controls on the German-Polish border last Tuesday.
Her reasoning: At the border with the Czech Republic, too, it has been possible to reduce the very high migration numbers in recent months without stationary border controls.
But she wants to increase the number of federal police officers at the border. By that she meant an additional personnel effort of “several hundreds” of the federal police. This step helps more than stationary border controls.
But it is also a fact that in April alone around 1,000 illegal immigrants (not including Ukrainians) who were smuggled to the border via Belarus by traffickers were apprehended on the German side.
For the accommodation of these refugees, who come from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, the capacities in Berlin and Brandenburg are as good as exhausted. Governing Wegner and Prime Minister Woidke have made it clear how serious the situation is.
On the other hand, it must be clear: Constant checks of all vehicles at the border would prevent traffic to the point of collapse. Nobody wants that. With the close ties between Poland and Germany, that’s not possible either.
That’s why more federal police officers and tighter controls would help.