European Union home affairs ministers met in Warsaw on Thursday to discuss migration, a day after the German parliament backed plans for tighter rules, including turning away all asylum seekers at Germany’s borders.
The government in Berlin does not have to act upon the motion tabled by conservative opposition leader Friedrich Merz. He is the front-runner to become chancellor following Germany’s general election on February 23.
Austrian Interior Minister Gerhard Karner said he welcomes German initiatives to become “more rigorous and robust” on migration matters.
Karner said he also has understanding for Germany conducting checks on its borders with fellow EU members, including Austria.
“I think it is right, if necessary, to also control internal borders,” he said, noting that Austria was also carrying out checks on its borders.
Most EU countries are part of the Schengen zone where border controls were officially abolished decades ago.
Luxembourg’s Home Affairs Minister Léon Gloden was one of the few to speak out against Germany’s border controls.
“We are against controls at the EU’s internal borders. Every day, 250,000 commuters come to work in Luxembourg. We need this workforce and that is why Luxembourg will continue to campaign for these controls to be abolished,” said Gloden.
As capitals across the bloc take increasingly restrictive positions on migration, ministers in Warsaw discussed an upcoming proposal by the European Commission for more effective deportations.
“Nobody understands why people who are not allowed, who cannot stay in the European Union, are not going to be returned. That’s why we are working on new rules, on tighter rules on returns,” said EU Internal Affairs Commissioner Magnus Brunner, as he arrived at the meeting.
On the agenda were also so-called “innovative solutions” like the agreement between Italy’s far-right government with Albania under which migrants rescued at sea are brought to asylum centres in Albania to be processed outside the bloc.
Brunner also stressed the need to protect the EU’s external border.
“We are experiencing ‘hybrid attacks’, particularly in the east, where people are being brought into play by the aggressor and migration is being used as a pawn and a weapon, so to speak. And we have to tackle this,” he said.
Warsaw and other Eastern European capitals accuse Moscow and Minsk of pushing migrants to the EU’s eastern external border in order to destabilize the bloc and undermine security.
Human rights organizations deplore the harsh push-back of migrants at the border.
“It should go without saying that pushing people back into dense forests in freezing temperatures is cruel, dangerous and patently illegal,” said Adriana Tidona from Amnesty International.
“This is not a solution by any measure. Poland has obligations under international law to individually assess people’s cases,” she added.
Activists documented 116 deaths along the EU’s border with Belarus between summer 2021 and May 2024.
Other topics on the agenda included the internal security of the bloc and its civilian and military preparedness and readiness.
Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak (C) leads the Informal meeting of European Home Affairs ministers. Leszek Szymański/European Council/dpa
