Greece warns Germany over ‘unilaterally scrapping’ free-movement Schengen zone to tackle migration

Berlin says it must tackle irregular migration because of overburdened public services and to protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism

Greece’s prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (AFP via Getty)

Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has warned German chancellor Olaf Scholz that an increase in migration into Europe cannot be addressed by “unilaterally scrapping” the free-movement Schengen zone.

Earlier this week, Germany announced plans to impose tighter checks at all of its land borders in what it called an attempt to tackle irregular migration.

The checks within what is normally a wide area of free movement will start on 16 September and initially last for six months.

“The response cannot be unilaterally scrapping Schengen and drop the ball to countries which sit at Europe’s external borders,” Mr Mitsotakis said in an interview with a Greek radio station.

He said that a solution would involve “a fair compromise” among all European countries, which would accept the need to protect Europe’s external borders.

The proposals from the German government include detaining asylum seekers while authorities determine whether Germany is responsible for processing their case with the help of Europe’s shared fingerprint database, Eurodac, among other tools, interior minister Nancy Faeser told a news conference.

“We want people whose asylum procedure is the responsibility of another EU country to be sent back there,” Ms Faeser said.

The measures reflect Germany’s hardening stance on immigration in the wake of high numbers of asylum seekers arriving from both the Middle East and Ukraine, which could strain relations with other European states.

“We will approach our European partners at a high political level to ensure that they give their approval for readmission to the respective countries more quickly so that the European rules are complied with,” Ms Faeser said.

Yet Polish prime minister Donald Tusk criticised Germany’s tighter border controls, calling for urgent consultations with other affected countries and more support for Warsaw’s own immigration policies.

In a televised debate ahead of Austria’s parliamentary election at the end of September, the country’s chancellor, Karl Nehammer, told national broadcaster ORF that if Germany introduced measures to send more immigrants back across their shared border, Austria would do the same, sending more people eastwards towards the Balkans.

German police conduct random checks at the border with Austria in Kiefersfelden, Germany (Reuters)

Mr Scholz’s centre-left government elaborated on the proposals for faster rejections at the borders as part of talks with the opposition conservatives, which fell apart on Tuesday with the conservatives complaining that the proposals did not go far enough.

Mr Scholz’s three-way coalition does not necessarily need approval from the conservatives, however, to push through the proposals, which they also want to discuss with regional governments before implementing.

Berlin says it must tackle irregular migration because of overburdened public services and to protect the public from threats such as Islamist extremism. Recent deadly knife attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers have stoked concerns over immigration. Isis claimed responsibility for a knife attack in the western city of Solingen in August in which three people were killed.

Mainstream parties are seeking to seize the initiative away from the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD), which has tapped into concerns about migration and seen support surge in recent years.

On 1 September, AfD became the first far-right party in Germany to win a state election since the Second World War, when it secured over 30 per cent of the vote in Thuringia.

Marcus Engler, of the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research, said, however, that the new proposals were likely to have a limited impact given asylum seekers would likely find ways around them, and that other EU countries did not appear willing to accept asylum seekers back.

Meanwhile, Hungary says it is prepared to sue the European Commission for reimbursement of the costs of protecting the European Union’s external border, which Budapest says has cost it some €2bn (£1.69bn), prime minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff said on Thursday.

In 2015, nationalist Mr Orban closed down a major transit route through Hungary for hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers fleeing war and poverty, bolstering his support at home but earning him widespread criticism from many EU allies.

“We are ready to sue the European Commission after it had reimbursed partially or in full the costs incurred by other member states protecting the Schengen border,” Gergely Gulyas said. “Hungary has spent €2bn on protecting the Schengen border in the past years without getting any meaningful contribution whatsoever from the EU.”

Mr Orban has displayed a sense of vindication after Germany announced its plans to impose tighter checks at all of its land borders.

“We can see that there are changes in Europe,” Mr Gulyas said. “In 2015, the Hungarian prime minister was the first to clearly say that unless the EU enforces community law and the Schengen Agreement ... then Schengen will collapse.”

Mr Gulyas said the decision by Berlin to impose border controls from Monday means that Germany is destroying the free movement area within the EU.

Reuters