Poland will temporarily reinstate border controls with neighboring Germany and Lithuania, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday.
The decision comes after new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz made tougher migration policy a pillar of his election campaign in February. After he took office in May, Germany stationed more police at the border and said some asylum-seekers trying to enter Europe’s biggest economy would be turned away.
Even before that, Merz's predecessor in February had extended by six months the border checks it imposed on all its frontiers last fall as it attempted to cut the number of migrants arriving in the country.
The European Union has a visa-free travel area known as Schengen that allows citizens of most member states to travel easily across borders for work and pleasure. Switzerland also belongs to Schengen although it is not an EU member.
According to the EU, member states are allowed to temporarily reintroduce border controls in cases of a serious threat, like internal security. It says border controls should be applied as a last resort in exceptional situations, and must be limited in time.
In the past, Tusk has repeatedly denounced Germany’s temporary border measures as “unacceptable.”
Several of Germany's neighbors have recently expressed dismay at the enforced border controls by Berlin, saying it slows down cross-border traffic of daily commuters and threatens visa-free Schengen travel.
Tusk said Tuesday the temporary measures will come into force on Monday, the Polish news agency PAP reported.
Just before Tusk announced the move, Merz had told reporters at a press conference in Berlin that his government was in very close contact with the Polish government to keep the impact of Germany's border controls with Poland “as low as possible.”
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