Germany's expanded border controls come into force

With Germany moving to impose tighter controls on its borders, Raphael Bossong, an expert on European migration policy at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, told DW its efficacy was contentious.

“I think operationally it is quite contested whether these kind of selective controls... really will make a major difference in terms of decreasing numbers or catching criminals or potentially even terrorists," Bossong said.

According to Bossong the message being sent with the border controls is that "Germany isn't open anymore."

However, the measures haven’t eased pressure on the German government, Bosslong said.

"In political terms, the pressure is still on... And in Brandenburg in the state election, the opposition still pursues its demand to have a more radical policy of border returns," he said.

German Green Party co-leader Ricarda Lang has warned against temporary border controls on Germany's western and northern frontiers becoming permanent.

Such measures must always be proportionate and there are major concerns here, Lang said on Monday in Berlin.

The police have too few staff for this and businesses were expressing concerns about rising costs in the supply chain, she said.

"That is why this cannot be a permanent state of affairs," said Lang.

The expansion of checks to Germany's borders with Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands have prompted compaints from some neighboring countries.

The measures will initially apply for six months. They are part of a security package implemented after a string of suspected Islamist attacks stirred concerns over immigration. 

Speaking from Germany's border with Austria at Neuhaus am Inn, where controls were already in place for years, DW reporter Giulia Saudelli said police do not stop every car entering Germany. 

With many commuters using the crossing daily, police have had to use a more targeted strategy.

"What they're looking for is people trying to enter Germany illegally for example they sometimes stop here people who have a ban on entering Germany but also people who want to come into Germany but don't have the right papers for it — for example they don't have a visa, they get stopped here and they have to go back to Austria."   

"They tend to stop bigger vans or vehicles that look like they could belong to people smugglers, trying to bring people from Austria into Germany."

Controls on the border to Denmark mean that thousands of cross-border workers now face being checked twice a day. 

Commuters have long faced checks on the way into Denmark, which has had controls its border for years. 

The latest move by Berlin has attracted criticism from Germany's small Danish minority in the state of Schleswig Holstein.

The leader of Germany's socialist Left Party has sharply criticized the federal government for the expanded border controls and migration policy in general.

"Border controls do not solve a single problem, they only create new ones," said party chief Janine Wissler.

The measures would lead to "gigantic traffic jams," she said, adding that it was foreseeable that the controls would primarily affect people whose appearance may not be considered German.

Wissler predicted that the measure would trigger a "European chain reaction."

Soon, she said, "the barriers could be up again everywhere" and tens of thousands of refugees could be stranded in countries like Italy or Greece.

Wissler said Chancellor Olaf Scholz's government was pursuing the policies of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on migration ahead of state elections in Brandenburg on Sunday.

However, she said this would not work. No matter how much Interior Nancy Faeser positions herself as a hardliner on the issue "it will never be enough for the right," said Wissler.

Germany's Interior Ministry has rejected the idea that police are resorting to racial profiling in the expanded controls at the German borders — specifically checking people because of a perceived foreign appearance.

A ministry spokeswoman stressed on Monday in Berlin that "a racially motivated implementation of police measures would be completely unacceptable and also illegal."

Racial profiling is "a particularly despicable form of discrimination that stigmatizes the people affected and can seriously damage their self-esteem," the spokeswoman continued.

Such an approach could "lead to alienation in the relationship with the security authorities," which the police want to avoid. 

"We want people to be able to trust the security authorities." The police, she said, had other criteria at their disposal.

Delivery vans in particular were being targeted because they are so often used by smugglers. "That has relatively little to do with the driver," she said. Other criteria concern certain "locations, time periods, age structures or even conspicuous behavior."

Speaking from a checkpoint on the border with France near the city of Saarbrücken, DW's Lucia Schulten explained how some of the controls appeared.

"Cars slow down and when the police officers decide to check one car they pull over here to the side and they have to drive in front of the police station where their papers are checked," she said.

"Since we've been standing here we've seen one of these long-distance buses being checked. Police went in there and checked the papers of everyone sitting in  there and they also took one man out who had to go into the police station."

Schulten explained that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been speaking to other European leaders over the weekend, with some expressing their concern about the checks.

"A lot will probably depend on what these checks will look like and what they will mean for the free movement of persons and goods within the European Union and if this will be a hindrance to them or not."  

Andreas Rosskopf, the head of Germany's Federal Police Union, has told the broadcaster RBB24 Inforadio that anyone crossing the border into Germany should now expect to be checked.

He nevertheless acknowledged that given the length of the country's borders, police realistically won't be able to stop every vehicle.

Germany has 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) on its western border, in addition to the 2,400 kilometers along its eastern and southern borders where the checks had already been taking place, he told the station on Monday morning.

Rosskopf said that "given the length of the border, permanent and intensive checks are not possible."

"It remains to be seen how successful it will be in curbing migration and people smuggling," he said in the Monday morning interview.

German police arrested three men traveling with hashish in the trunk of their car, as Berlin introduced the new border checks.

A spokesman said the three had evaded a checkpoint on the A30 highway near the town of Bad Bentheim as they entered the German state of Lower Saxony from the Netherlands.

They did cross the border, but were stopped near the town of Rheine, about 30 kilometers (roughly 19 miles) east in the neighboring state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

The three were said to all be under investigation on Monday morning in connection with the cannabis haul.

The new checks are at crossings with Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. 

Controls already existed on Germany's borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland.

German police have started monitoring all of the country's land borders  as part of an effort to crack down on irregular migration and crime following recent extremist attacks.

Previously, only travelers arriving at Germany's eastern and southern land borders were checked. Now, and for at least the next six months, northern and western borders will also be monitored.

This includes border crossings with Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and France.

Germany lies in the center of the Schengen Area, which comprises 29 European countries that have abolished internal border controls, with passports only required at external borders and airports.

rc/rmt (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)