By Michael Sauerbier
New hiccup over border controls with Poland: Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (53, SPD) first refused to set up permanent checkpoints, then she gave in. Now Warsaw’s Interior Minister canceled the agreed border controls with the Federal Police on Polish territory!
“The Polish side informed us today that the planned joint controls at the Swiecko border crossing on the A12 Warsaw-Berlin motorway can no longer be agreed to,” said Federal Police spokeswoman Alina Müller (30) to the BZ. “That is why we are building our checkpoint at the A12 on the German side of the border bridge is now open again.”
It was only on Wednesday that the federal police dismantled their checkpoint on the most used east-west highway (nickname: Warschauer Allee). Because the artificial bottleneck led to kilometers of backlogs and waiting times. Transport companies, commuters and business associations complained about this.
The planned checkpoint on the Polish side should solve the problem: the Swiecko border station is located between the lanes and has plenty of parking space for checks. There would no longer have been traffic jams there – but it would have been a big problem for Poland: refugees who would have been caught in Swiecko and asked for asylum would then no longer have been able to get to Germany.
The right-wing national PiS government had so far done little to stem the flow of illegal refugees into Germany. So she neither had to register the migrants nor accommodate them in Poland. Joint border controls on the Polish side would have changed that.
The federal police checkpoint behind the Polish border on the A12 motorway caused long traffic jams, but we have now rebuilt it Photo: Olaf Selchow
Horror among the federal police. Spokeswoman Müller: “We had long since coordinated the new Swiecko checkpoint with Poland and aligned our plans accordingly.” Minister Faeser: disgraced by the Poles!
Now the federal police have to check on the German side again – the motorway traffic jam starts again. To the detriment of the economy in Germany in Poland. And with still high numbers of refugees. Anyone who says “asylum” during a check in Germany cannot be rejected.