Germany debates extending Euro 2024 border controls

Germany's center-right parties have called for the special stationary border controls introduced for the Euro 2024 men's football tournament to be extended, citing what they see as successes in stemming illegal immigration and fighting crime. However, the government says that, though those successes are real, stationary border checks are costly and less effective than mobile controls. Many critics say they are also damaging to the economy in the long term.

Christian Dürr, parliamentary party leader for the neoliberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), the smallest party in Chancellor Olaf Scholz's coalition government, spoke out in favor of extending the controls. These would "enable us to catch those who want to enter the country illegally very effectively," Dürr told the Funke Media Group newspapers.

Similarly, Martin Huber, secretary general of the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), told the DPA news agency that the new stationary controls are "indispensable" for internal security and stopping illegal immigration.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) deployed some 22,000 police officers throughout Euro 2024, both at the games and to impose extra static controls at all of Germany's borders — they were introduced a week before the football tournament began on June 14 and will remain in place until July 19. Faeser also said she wanted to keep the controls in place on Germany's border with France throughout the Paris Olympics, which run from July 26 to August 11.

The Interior Ministry recently released figures for temporary border controls for the period from June 7 to 27, which showed that around 600 outstanding arrest warrants were executed and around 150 people smugglers arrested. In around 3,200 cases, people were prevented from entering the country. 

Not enough police

However, according to Andreas Rosskopf, chairman of Germany's largest police union, the GdP, extending these controls beyond this week is unsustainable in the long run.

"We only managed that because we suspended vacations and our colleagues worked overtime," he told DW. "That means in terms of staffing, we are not ready to carry out border controls permanently."

In any case, Rosskopf added, "These static border controls don't have the same effect as when you have flexible, modern, and intelligent border control." This means border checks that move around daily, random police checks on roads and trains, use surveillance drones and can react quickly to the situation on the ground. "I think then our border control is much better," he said.

Such controls have already been in place since 2015 along Germany's borders with Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland — which amount to around 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) — and have proved effective, according to Rosskopf, precisely because mobile checks are not as predictable as stationary borders.

Rosskopf also pointed out that anyone who appears at the German border seeking asylum cannot simply be turned away since only immigration authorities, not the police, are legally allowed to assess an asylum application.

The political debate

Nevertheless, the political opposition over border checks continues. Alexander Throm, domestic policy spokesperson for the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said the stationary checks were necessary because "the open borders are abused thousandfold by criminals and migrants."

Throm was also skeptical of random "dragnet" police controls because, in most cases, the people who are picked up are already well inside the country.

"Rejections can only be carried out when they're carried out at the border," he told DW. "Dragnet controls are just the second-best means."

Marcel Emmerich, Throm's counterpart in the Green Party, disagrees — and questions what is behind the numbers that the Interior Ministry has provided on the Euro 2024 checks.

"There was a list of so-called illegal entries, but the Interior Ministry hasn't really said what that means in concrete terms," he told DW. "Because once the people are here, they can make asylum applications, and they usually do, and even if they do get turned away, they can come back the next day."

And as for the warrants the Interior Ministry says were executed, "there is still no information on what punishments were carried out — is it people who were caught without tickets on a train or really serious criminals? Were these checks proportional? All those points are still open."

Emmerich said that it was reasonable to introduce more security for a major sporting event but that static border controls caused problems in the long term.

"You get long queues at the border, it inconveniences people living in border regions, and it damages the economy because deliveries arrive later," he said.

He also argued that the extra burdens on the police actually reduced security elsewhere: "Putting officers at the borders 24/7 means they can't be at train stations and airports."

Above all, this is the question of EU law: Free movement within the EU is considered one of the bloc's greatest achievements. Extra border controls within the EU now have to be justified and approved each time.

Edited by Rina Goldenberg

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