Poland – alongside several other neighboring countries – has been critical of Germany since the new government started turning away asylum-seekers trying to come to the country by crossing any of its land borders. In addition to southern EU countries like Spain, Italy and Greece, which have the highest rate of irregular arrivals, Poland says it also feels that such policies spell additional problems, as the Eastern European nation is part of the bloc's external border, the international news agency V4NA writes.
Berlin argues that Germany is surrounded by safe countries as neighbors, and that anyone traveling to Germany with the intention of seeking asylum would have opportunities in any of its neighboring countries to lodge their claim there first.
Rules Are Unclear, Border Authorities Are Uncertain
According to Federal Police Commissioner Uli Grotsch, there's a lack of clear accountability when prospective asylum-seekers are rejected at Germany's borders, which could come to haunt officials deployed to beef up border security.
Uli Grotsch called on Interior Minister Dobrindt to provide clarity and legal certainty for the officers deployed to the borders to be allowed to pursue the new policy of rejecting asylum seekers with impunity, telling the Rheinische Post daily newspaper that
„[i]t is clear to me that the officers at the border checkpoints must not be held accountable" if any legal disputes should arise.
Grotsch also commented that "the executive branch is saying something different here than the judiciary," despite verbal reassurance from Mr. Dobrindt, saying that he is "convinced that our measures are within European law." IM Dobrindt told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper publishers that if there's any doubt, "the European Court of Justice should decide on this." According to the interior minister, authorities have turned back a total of 3,278 people at Germany's borders since he instructed the federal police to reject asylum-seekers last month, "including 160 asylum-seekers," he added.
New German Coalition is Not United
Even though the new government has only been in force for a month, there already appears to be disagreement on the issue of rejecting asylum-seekers at Germany's borders, also within its own ranks.
Matthias Miersch, the parliamentary group leader of the Social Democrats (SPD), which is the junior coalition partner of Chancellor Friedrich Merz's so-called "grand coalition," said that such summary rejections would not be sustainable.
His comments came after an administrative court in Berlin ruled in favor of three Sudanese asylum seekers remaining in Germany in what Miersch believes will prove to be only the first of a slew of court proceedings to ensue should the government carry on pursuing this particular course.
In my view, there will no longer be such blanket rejections because the courts will stop this,
Miersch told the weekly Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper, adding that "otherwise, [the government] will lose more such court cases in the coming months."
While this particular court decree in Berlin only applies to the case of the three Sudanese individuals, Miersch believes that higher courts and appellate procedures could establish further precedents that would render the current policy null and void.
The Berlin court had specifically ruled that without clarifying which EU state is indeed responsible for a particular asylum application, no asylum applicant should be rejected, citing Section 18, Paragraph 2 of the German Asylum Act, which states that entry to Germany may only be refused if there are indications that another state is responsible for conducting the asylum procedure.
Since the prosecution had not produced any evidence to this end, the court had to side with the plaintiffs, the verdict said. Meanwhile, the ruling by the Berlin court is not legally contestable but is only binding in the case of the three Sudanese nationals. It cannot be applied as case law as part of other proceedings.
Merz Blames Migration for Rise in Anti-Semitism in Germany
Friedrich Merz has described the sudden surge in anti-Semitism in Germany as a “terrible challenge” for the country. In an interview with Fox News, the German chancellor blamed migrants for the increase in antisemitic incidents.
We are doing everything we can to bring these numbers down,
he told the American Fox News channel in a recent interview.
According to a report, the number of anti-Semitic incidents in Germany nearly doubled in 2024, with 8,627 acts of violence, vandalism, and threats against Jews recorded. Anti-Semitic attacks came from all segments of society – from the radical left, Muslim communities, and the far right alike. The report found that the number of anti-Semitic incidents with a far-right background has risen to its highest level since data collection began in 2020.
Frankly, we have imported anti-Semitism with the big numbers of migrants we have within the last 10 years,
the chancellor declared.
Merz has previously employed the rhetoric of “imported anti-Semitism”, a phrase critics argue fuels Islamophobia and enables Germany to overlook the issue of rising antisemitism within broader society
