By Gunnar Schupelius
Migrants and refugees are illegally smuggled to Brandenburg and Berlin via Belarus. However, they must not be rejected. Anyone who wants to can understand that, says Gunnar Schupelius.
The interior ministers of the 16 federal states met in Berlin for three days (June 14-16) to discuss internal security. They disagreed on one important point: Brandenburg and Saxony had demanded controls at the Polish border in order to limit immigration.
These controls would have to be ordered by Federal Interior Minister Faeser (SPD). However, she did not agree to do so at the conference. Such measures are not currently necessary, she claimed.
“I think that’s irresponsible,” said Brandenburg Interior Minister Michael Stübgen (CDU). Since January 1, “more than 10,000 people from Poland have already entered the Federal Republic without permission”. This is an increase over the same period last year “by almost 170 percent”.
Stübgen explained that “this flow of migration is being “organized in a targeted manner by the dictators in Russia and Belarus” and is continuing to increase. It is absurd that controls are approved at the border with Austria, but not at the Polish and Czech borders.
The government of Baden-Württemberg (green/black) shared this view and demanded controls at the Swiss border, also without success.
All interior ministers agreed that the latest EU asylum decision is to be welcomed, but that it will take time for it to take hold. The EU had decided to move the asylum procedures to the external borders and also to reject migrants there.
Until then, the German internal borders must be protected, say the German interior ministers. But at the request of the SPD colleagues, the joint statement was softened. It reads like this: “Until the reform of the Common European Asylum System is effectively implemented, short-term measures are required. These short-term simplifications include the possibility of intensifying border protection according to the situation at internal borders that are particularly affected.”
This is a very soft formulation that makes it easy for Ms. Faeser to refuse border controls again and again.
It’s always the same political game, the process goes like this: The cities and municipalities point the finger at the interior ministers: “You have to stop uncontrolled immigration, because we can’t take anyone in anymore!”
The interior ministers point to Mrs. Faeser that she must take action. Ms. Faeser points to the EU Commission, which is to set up checkpoints at the external borders.
Ms. Faeser knows that this will take a long time or that it doesn’t work at all in practice. The interior ministers know that Ms. Faeser knows that. So it’s always nice in turn and the cities and municipalities are the pinched.
While other EU countries have long been limiting immigration on their own, Germany is pursuing an aimless special path. You don’t get it.
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