The minister wants to propose measures at the meeting on Wednesday, how to deal with the situation, said the spokesman for the ministry, Steve Alter, on Monday.
The German government and also the governments in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland accuse the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of bringing migrants and refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border in an organized manner. Lukashenko announced at the end of May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from continuing to travel to the EU – in response to tightened Western sanctions against his country.
Since then, reports of attempted irregular border crossings at the EU’s external borders with Belarus and at the Polish-German border have increased. The German Interior Ministry announced that around 4,500 illegal entries have been found here since August.
Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said that comparisons with the so-called refugee crisis, when more than a million asylum seekers had come into the country within a few months, were inappropriate. He emphasized: “We are in no way in a situation like 2015, which some suggest.”
The chairman of the Federal Police Union, Heiko Teggatz, is meanwhile pressing for the introduction of temporary controls on the border with Poland. Teggatz justified this in a letter to Seehofer with the health risk for the employees of the federal police, as “Bild” reported. The Police Union (GdP) does not believe in this idea at the moment.
“For several months, the number of apprehensions has increased almost explosively,” the newspaper quoted from the letter from the Federal Police Union. The federal government can only prevent a “collapse” at the borders, as in 2015, by introducing temporary border controls.
Teggatz continued: “Our colleagues are also exposed to a considerable health risk, as SARS COV-2 infections are still very high, especially in the migrants’ countries of origin (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.) and are only very rarely recorded by the authorities. ” Hygiene regulations as usual in Germany and Europe would not be observed during the smuggling.
The union chairman suggested: The EU should withdraw take-off and landing permits from such airlines within the European Union and thus build up economic pressure. “
“We are no longer ready to see that there are also companies such as airlines that also earn money with it,” said German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Monday at a meeting with counterparts in Luxembourg. You need sanctions with which you can make it clear that you are not ready to accept this any further.
Maas again raised serious allegations against the Belarusian ruler Lukashenko personally. “We are confronted in Europe with the fact that Lukashenko uses refugees as an instrument to put pressure on European states,” he said. He is “nothing more than the head of a state smuggling ring”.
Lithuania’s Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite announced an increase in troops to support border guards – up to 64 additional soldiers are to be deployed every day. “We have to react and be prepared for the worst,” Bilotaite was quoted in a statement. Defense Minister Arvydas Anusauskas stressed that the Lithuanian poor had provided support “in the context of hybrid aggression” and would continue to do so.
The interior minister of the state of Brandenburg, Michael Stübgen, expressed concerns about the proposal for temporary border controls on the German-Polish border. “Only the federal government can decide whether the capacities of the federal police are sufficient to control several hundred kilometers of the border with Poland and whether the effort is worthwhile,” said Stübgen on Monday to the German press agency. He had his doubts that temporary checks would solve the problem. He warned of an “escalation spiral” on the border.
“Currently we see no reason for border controls,” said the chairman of the Federal Police District of the Police Union (GdP), Andreas Rosskopf, of the dpa. “Yes, there must be a reaction, but we prefer an intensification of the border search,” he added. The current situation in terms of the number of arriving asylum seekers is not comparable with the situation in autumn 2015.