Germany is introducing border controls, and an association of German cities and towns is calling for more measures against illegal immigration and a task force to deport migrants. So, what happened?
Germans have now come to the point where they realize that the migration crisis threatens Europe’s stability. It seems that the Germans have had enough of migrants.
“Welcome to the club!” Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz after the news broke on the tightening border measures.
“The events cannot be seen in isolation from the German domestic political situation,” said Zoltán Kiszelly, director of political analysis at the Századvég Centre for Public Policy Research. He explained that the recent state elections and the upcoming elections in Brandenburg on Sept. 22 show that the support for the governing parties in Berlin has collapsed so much nationally and locally that they have to make some changes.
“One of them, for example, is that the financing of the Russian-Ukrainian war is increasingly being shifted from the German budget to the EU and NATO. Another is that they are making some changes in the area of migration,” he said.
“The reintroduction of border controls is one measure. Another is that they will turn back migrants who have already been registered in another member state.”
Kiszelly recalled that this is nothing other than the enforcement of the Dublin III Regulation, which requires asylum procedures to be carried out in the country of entry. So, they will actually enforce this more, which they hope will reduce the number of people staying in Germany if they are sent back to their country of entry.
“Social benefits are also being cut. They are now debating whether to cut benefits for single Ukrainian men to go home to fight, and they are also considering whether to cut benefits for those who don’t work or take language courses, or lose them altogether,” the expert added.
“There have been similar or similar measures before, in other countries,” the political scientist pointed out. “The Spanish, for example, who now have a six-meter fence in Morocco, and the Italians can be mentioned here too.” Slovenia, Italy, and Austria have also decided in recent months to reintroduce border controls on a permanent basis as part of a crackdown on illegal migration.
