From midnight on Sunday, July 6th until at least August 5th, Polish border guards will be imposing checks on incoming travellers, adding to the broader crisis facing the European Union’s passport-free Schengen zone.
Anti-immigration campaigners claim that Germany is funnelling migrants to Poland without them having originally entered Germany via Poland. Other complaints, according to pro-EU observers such as the Guardian, are merely ‘far right.’ Prime Minister Donald Tusk roots the problem in Russia and Belarus trying to destabilise him and Brussels by weaponizing migration as a form of asymmetric warfare. Poland’s capture of an Estonian man smuggling four individuals—thought to be Afghan—has also fuelled perception of the problem.
The new measures involve hundreds of additional police officers and soldiers being sent to the 52 border crossings shared with Germany (and a further 13 shared with Lithuania).
Meanwhile, rhetorical tensions between Poland and Germany have sharpened, with Tusk describing his government as
supporters of … Europe without borders …. doing this for you, for the Germans, the Dutch, the French, because it’s the border of the European Union.
Berlin’s official reply states
The protection of borders against irregular migration is an interest that Germany has, that Poland has, that our European neighbours share with us. We do not want permanent border controls.
This half-hearted defence of Schengen contrasts starkly with the penalties imposed on Hungary for its own earlier and ongoing defence of EU borders.
