Barely in place, the new German government hardened its migration policy by announcing, Wednesday, May 7, that most asylum seekers were going to be repressed to the borders, when the extreme right continues to progress in the polls. He immediately attracted a warning from neighboring Poland, while Switzerland has “Displayed” The decision.
A few hours after his entry into office, the Minister of the Conservative Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, announced that he was canceling a directive of one of his predecessors, dating from 2015 and issued in the midst of a European migration crisis, during which Germany had welcomed more than a million refugees from Syria and Afghanistan.
At the time, the Minister of the Conservative Interior, Thomas de Maizière, had asked the federal police “To authorize the entry of nationals of third countries without documents legitimizing their stay and without presentation of an asylum application”.
With the cancellation of this directive, the new government of the Conservative Friedrich Merz definitively turns the page of the country’s long generous reception policy, initiated in its time by Angela Merkel. Concretely, Mr. Dobrindt ordered the border police to repress undileged asylum seekers, “Except vulnerable groups, such as pregnant children and women”. “Germany must be able to make decisions to reduce illegal immigration figures and asylum requests”he added, at a press conference in Berlin.
Polish reaction
Migration policy should therefore find “Clarity, consistency and control”he hammered. “We will not do it in the form of an overload of our neighbors. We will not do the closure of borders either, but it is a question of strengthening border control and, thanks to this strengthening, of increasing the number of repressions ”he continued.
Mr. Dobrindt thus tried to reassure the neighbors of Germany, some of whom, like Poland, are already very critical of the controls which considerably slow down the circulation of border workers.
The announcement of these measures, however, immediately reacted to the Polish head of government, Donald Tusk. The latter prayed to the Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, “To focus on the external borders of the EU” And preserve the Schengen zone, during a common press conference in Warsaw.
In an interview on Wednesday at the Die Welt television channel, Mr. Merz said he had informed Emmanuel Macron and Donald Tusk in advance of these reinforced checks.
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“We know that interior border controls can only be a transition. But they are simply necessary as long as we have an irregular migration as high in the European Union ”he added, stressing that Germany, a country located in the center of Europe, was one of the most affected by this phenomenon.
Decrendy asylum requests
According to figures from the German Interior Ministry, the number of asylum applications increased from 2020 to 2023, then decreased in 2024. In total, 250,945 people asked for asylum in Germany in 2024, a drop of 28.7 % compared to the previous year.
According to official figures published in early May, more than 53,000 people have been turned back to the German borders since October 2023.
This Immigration Tour of Vis, a subject which dominated the election campaign of the German legislative elections after a series of attacks committed by foreigners, was expected.
Already a few weeks before entering into office, the Chancellor had announced that he would make him one of the priority files of his government, in particular to regain the confidence of the voters who left to the far right.
In some recent polls, the alternative party for Germany (AFD), who arrived second in the legislative elections, has risen in the lead, exceeding the conservatives. The popularity of this anti-migrant training, ranked Friday “Right’s extremist” By the internal intelligence services, worries the new government of Friedrich Merz.
According to an intelligence report, published in the press on Wednesday, the movement practices a “Continuous agitation” against migrants, refugees and Muslims, presenting them as a “Threatening collective”.