Germany is reinstating controls at its border with Austria temporarily as Europe’s top economy struggles to cope with a record influx of refugees, according to media reports Sunday.
Passport checks had been abolished for countries within Europe’s Schengen zone, but the decision to bring back controls is expected to be announced by Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere at a press conference on Sunday evening, several German media reported.
According to German newspaper Bild, the move would affect Germany’s border with Austria first.
The German government was not immediately available to comment on the report.
Bild cited security sources as saying that the state government in Bavaria had asked the federal police to help deal with the task. The newspaper said the federal police would send 2,100 officers to Bavaria to help it secure its borders.
Germany has become the destination of choice for migrants, particularly Syrians, after Chancellor Angela Merkel relaxed asylum rules for citizens of the war-torn country.
But with 450,000 migrants arriving since the beginning of the year, infrastructure in Germany is being stretched to the limit. The German government is expecting 800,000 new arrivals this year. On Saturday around 13,000 arrived in Munich alone.
By reinstating controls, Berlin is seeking to buy time to cope with the influx, according to news magazine Der Spiegel.
Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt had issued a statement earlier Sunday saying that “effective measures are necessary now to stop the influx.”
“That includes help for countries from where refugees are fleeing and also includes an effective control of our own borders which also no longer works given the EU’s complete failure to protect its external borders,” he said.
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a newspaper interview on Sunday that Germany was now reaching its limit as thousands of refugees continue to stream across its borders every day.
“It’s true: The European lack of action in the refugee crisis is now pushing even Germany to the limit of its ability,” he said in the interview published on Der Tagesspiegel’s website.
“It’s not so much the number of refugees as the speed at which they’re arriving that’s making it so difficult for the states and the municipalities to cope,” he added.
Gabriel said Germany and Europe should together put up €1.5bn euros ($1.7bn) of immediate aid to provide food, accommodation and above all schools for the biggest refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon. He urged the United States and the Gulf states to support the camp’s refugees with the same amount.
“It’s unacceptable that hundreds of billions of euros can be mobilised to rescue banks within a few weeks but the international community can’t even get together a fraction of that amount to save people,” Gabriel said.
