Is this the end of Schengen?
Germany’s shock decision to tighten controls across all its land borders to stop “irregular migration” and the “acute dangers posed by Islamist terror” has thrown Europe’s much coveted freedom of movement into doubt and sent shivers through neighbouring countries.
As the European Union’s biggest and most influential economy, the repercussions of Germany’s about-turn on illegal migration on the rest of the bloc is massive. It’s already been heavily criticised in Brussels where diplomats have condemned the move, describing it as “transparent” and “obviously aimed at a domestic audience”.
Berlin already operates controls at its border with Austria, and since last year, has done so with Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. But now Germany’s Interior Minister, Nancy Faeser, has extended passport checks starting next Monday to migrants coming from neighbouring France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands. Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, has criticised the tightening of controls, arguing that returning illegal migrants or “push-backs” would not be accepted.
Faeser’s proposals follow a public outcry after a deadly attack in late August in which three festival-goers were killed in Solingen by a Syrian ISIS-sympathiser who had evaded deportation. The horrific crime, along with the murder of a police officer by an Afghan asylum seeker in June, has been credited with bolstering support for the anti-immigration AfD party, which won an unprecedented victory in the Thuringian state elections last week.
Shaken by the AfD’s performance, and facing an ultimatum from the opposition CDU, the Social Democrats relented and abandoned their opposition to universal border checks. CDU leader Friedrich Merz’s gambit – in which he threatened to boycott cross-party migration talks unless the government instituted immediate checks to turn back asylum seekers at all borders – has paid off.
The opposition seeks a new “German migration pact” to cap migration at 200,000 a year in order to prioritise domestic security. However, the ruling coalition will find it difficult to reach internal consensus on a deal as the Green faction opposes the new restrictions and claims “all arriving asylum seekers have a right to have their asylum application examined”.
The CDU meanwhile has little to lose politically if asylum talks fall through as the party is on track to dominate next year’s federal election. The blame will land upon Olaf Scholz’s unpopular Social Democrats who, if polling trends persist, will fall to third place behind the AfD in the federal contest.
The prospect of the AfD coming second next year has raised alarm amongst all mainstream parties, which have each vowed to never govern alongside the highly divisive party.
While Merz equated collaboration with the AfD as akin to “selling his soul”, he has channelled elements of the hard-right’s rhetoric in the last week in a bid to court disaffected voters. Since the AfD’s victory last Sunday, Merz spoke of young migrant men’s “complete lack of respect for women”, and suggested they are partly responsible for the nation’s horrifying increase in gang rapes. Such talking points would have been unthinkable coming from the party of Angela Merkel in years past.
Circumstances have changed though, and even members of Merkel’s former government now admit that her permissive migration policies “destabilised and overwhelmed German society”.
Recent polling suggests the CDU’s shift is in line with the German public, a majority of whom have put reducing migration as their top priority amidst record breaking illegal immigration numbers.
Germany’s decision to take such a big step may well have a domino effect on free movement within the Schengen zone and could trigger its collapse. Several EU member nations including Austria, Denmark, Italy, Slovenia and Sweden are currently restricting free movement, implementing months-long border checks to counter terrorist threats, transnational gangs, and Russian sabotage groups.
While Schengen members are restricted to an emergency border check lasting at the most six months, governments are desperately seeking other more creative measures to halt migration. Many are holding out for 2026, when the EU’s new migration pact is set to kick in. The deal is likely to include a mass surveillance system at borders to track asylum seekers, institute new methods to hasten deportations, and redistribute asylum seekers to all EU members through “mandatory solidarity”.
Yet the pact is unlikely to see the light of day as Germany’s latest move rewrites the rules of the game.
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