Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that the federal government’s tightened border controls are putting the principle of European freedom of movement at risk, despite figures showing they have sharply reduced the number of illegal entries into Germany.
Speaking on Wednesday evening at an event in Neu-Ulm organized by the Südwest Presse, Merkel, who led Germany during the 2015 migrant crisis and welcomed over a million foreign nationals to the country, insisted that national measures to control migration were ultimately ineffective and endangered the broader European project.
“I do not believe that we will be able to conclusively combat illegal migration on the German-Austrian or German-Polish borders,” Merkel said during a discussion with Südwest Presse editor-in-chief Ulrich Becker.
Merkel, who read excerpts from her book “Freedom,” stressed her long-standing preference for European-level solutions. “The truth is, it takes forever and a very long time, but we must focus on external border protection. Anything else will ultimately cost us Schengen, i.e., freedom of movement in the European Union, if it becomes permanent.”
The former chancellor added that current internal controls were already having an effect. “Border controls are already very annoying in some cases,” she said, claiming that she personally knows many people who no longer travel to Szczecin in Poland because of the inconvenience. “I plead for European solutions because otherwise we could see Europe being destroyed for us, and I don’t want that. And I hope that the new federal government doesn’t want that either.”
Germany’s border regime has grown steadily stricter in recent years, with stationary border checks with Austria having been in place since 2015, and extended to Poland, Czechia, and Switzerland in October 2023. Interior controls were further expanded during the summer of 2024 to include all other land borders.
Federal police data obtained by Welt suggests the government’s newfound interest in border control is working. From January to mid-May this year, 22,170 illegal entries were registered, down from 83,572 during the same period in 2024 and 127,549 in 2023.
The new CDU-led federal government vowed during the election campaign in February to crack down on illegal immigration, and Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) recently announced that most asylum seekers would be turned away at the German border, citing EU law provisions that allow border measures in cases of public emergency. Children and pregnant women are exempt from the rule.
Dobrindt said that in the first week alone, the number of rejections increased by nearly 50 percent.
Many remain skeptical of the government’s genuine ambition to consistently tackle mass immigration into the country, including the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, which warned Chancellor Friedrich Merz was preparing to row back on election pledges after agreeing to a coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD).
In January, Merkel also publicly criticized her former CDU party and its leader Friedrich Merz after he sought to pass immigration reforms when in opposition with AfD support.
The pair have a fractious relationship, with Merz previously berating his former boss for opening the floodgates into Germany back in 2015.
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