Monday, October 18, 2021
The number of illegal entries is increasing
Seehofer wants measures on the border with Poland
In view of the influx of refugees from Belarus, a police union leader warns of a “collapse” on the German-Polish border – and calls for controls. Interior Minister Seehofer is now reacting. In the cabinet, he wants to talk about measures to defuse the situation.
The Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko allows thousands of migrants to cross the border to Poland – from there apparently many continue to flee to Germany. In a letter to Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, the chairman of the Federal Police Union, Heinz Teggert, calls for temporary controls to be set up at the German-Polish border. The letter is in the “Bild” newspaper. Now a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior has announced that Seehofer wants to bring up possible measures at the border in the cabinet meeting on Wednesday. However, the chairman of the Federal Police District of the Police Union (GdP), Andreas Roßkopf, spoke out against such controls.
“For several months, the number of apprehensions has been rising almost explosively,” the newspaper quoted the union leader as saying. Teggert compares the situation with the refugee crisis in 2015. The number of illegal “Entry and smuggling at the border with Poland “is comparable to the figures from 2013 at the Austrian border. At that time, migrants entered Germany uncontrolled, and in 2015 the” security architecture “of the border guards collapsed can only through the “Introduction of temporary border controls to Poland “will be prevented.
The situation is not comparable to the one in autumn 2015
Teggert is also concerned about the health of the emergency services. “Our colleagues are also exposed to a significant health risk, since SARS-CoV-2 infections, especially in the countries of origin of the migrants (Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.), are still very high and only are very rarely recorded by the authorities, “he writes. The smugglers also failed to comply with hygiene regulations in order to curb the risk of infection among the refugees.
Office colleague Roßkopf from the GdP, however, said: “At the moment we see no reason for border controls”, he added. And he contradicts Teggert on one crucial point: the current situation in terms of the number of arriving asylum seekers cannot be compared with the situation in autumn 2015. The Federal Ministry of the Interior is still alarmed. The Federal Foreign Office is also trying to get states like Iraq and Jordan to stop flights to Minsk.
Poland erected a barbed wire fence on the border
The national conservative government in Warsaw has already declared a state of emergency in the border region with Belarus; Journalists and representatives of aid organizations are not allowed in. Latvia, Lithuania and Poland accuse the Belarusian ruler Alexander Lukashenko of organizing refugees from crisis regions to the EU’s external border.
In response to tightened Western sanctions against his country, Lukashenko announced at the end of May that Minsk would no longer prevent migrants from continuing to travel to the EU. Since then, reports of attempted illegal border crossings at the EU’s external borders with Belarus have increased. Poland has erected a barbed wire fence at the border, which is to be converted into a permanent fortification.