Germany to Introduce Border Controls | Michał Broniatowski

good evening and welcome to World talks on TVP world I'm your host Diana Sky Germany is Shifting its stance on immigration now following a knife attack and electoral gains made by a far-right party now the German Ministry of interior announced the reintroduction of controls on all land borders for six months beginning this upcoming Monday September 16th now with the possibility of renewal now the German government informed the European commission about this and polish prime minister Donald Tusk considered Berlin's new announcement as unacceptable critics have also been complaining that the decision will prove to be a real blow to Europe's prized principle of free movement and could severely test EU Unity now the European commission is analyzing the justification for this decision now border controls between Germany and Poland let's be reminded have already been in for since October 2023 now joining me in studio to break it down for us is director and chief editor of TVP World Mr mikal gradovi uh director it's so uh good to have you here with us this evening thank you so much for being our guest for inviting me very very happy to to to have you on here now Mr banovski Germany has reinstated these border checks uh with Poland uh already uh almost over a year ago and there are State slated to stay uh from what we know uh to remain in forc until at least December due to concerns of course over illegal uh illegal migration now how does this actually align uh with the principles of the shenen agreement and what exceptions if any uh can you say are being uh invoked well Shen shenen Accord includes uh a provision for a possible um and uh temporary suspension of uh free transfer uh over the border and the article 25 in case of special situation uh catastrophe or something like that uh it can be as I said only temporary but as we see it can be also extended Poland and three other countries in uh in our neighborhood which is czechia Austria and Switzerland of all other places uh are also experiences experiencing already now uh the uh border controls but they are uh not for everybody they are random controls we're talking about authorities being able to to just what check their cars ask for passports but not everybody but cues are uh getting created nevertheless so uh we don't know what are the uh plans of the German side uh that they are going to implement on Monday because they may uh we we it's not public yet what are their plants they may be strict controls for everybody plus they are introducing controls for five countries in the western part of Europe uh uh which is France Benelux countries and Denmark uh and all these countries are already uh reacting very nervously to that uh to that measure because there are lots of people living on one side of the border and working on the other side and it may be simply disrupting their lives not to mention the painful fact that you know the country which is in the very middle of the European Union is uh if not closing at least making their borders more difficult to cross uh is doing it and uh it is doing it uh without an obvious International reason I would say um so but Poland has also been actually quite vocal about strengthen its border security as well right also particularly with the uh with uh Belarus uh with the migrants with the with the Syrian migrants that were supposed to cross through now can you explain Poland's specific proposals and how they actually might impact uh this relationship with neighboring EU countries you mean the the action by Germany yes well as I said it's a very big problem for for people who live at the border uh but in general since we don't know what what are they going to implement on on Monday we we should expect the worst and uh you know this is destroying the main achievement of uh uh of European Union which is the shenen um Accord uh for me you know after entering shenen Poland entered shenen before it entered the the EU and uh you know until today this is the main thing you can just pack your things up and then and travel to anywhere in in in Europe and this is exactly against the you know what the European Union stands for the uh freedom of of of of movement uh plus as I already said there is no obvious reason uh for that because there's no indication that the number of of uh irregular um migrants are entering uh Europe there's in fact statistics uh in the first half of this this year are lower than uh the previous year so we should we can expect that what's happening is not the situation on borders the situation of this uh Deluge of of uh uh migrants but this is uh the internal domestic situation in Germany uh where you already mentioned uh we had this stubbing attack uh recently and uh the fear of Islamic extremism right yes plus you know elections uh elections are deciding about everything there there were two elections in in German states uh which uh in one of them in turingia uh German for right uh won these elections plus the uh left uh I I wouldn't call I wouldn't call them extremist but but far left party also F quite quite quite well um in in 10 days we'll have another elections in which in Brandenburg and we may expect well not we Germans can expect the situation in which again the ation for dut will uh will uh will remove SPD from uh from Power uh the Socialist Party so this Socialist Party together with the two um uh Coalition Partners liberals and the greens they decided that it would be good to uh from the propaganda point of view from the uh to to calm down uh uh the society which uh for which one of the main concerns is is so-called flood of of of uh of migrants but doing the same thing uh that probably would uh the um uh local governments of of uh these three federal states if they are governed by uh if there they may simply locally impose some blocks for uh the movement of of of of migrants so they are trying to convince uh voters that they are protecting their uh protecting their uh lives they their jobs and then and security uh but as I said this is this is just uh the Electoral hysteria and uh uh and we are suffering from it the rest of Europe can you just elaborate a little bit more on that Mr batovi I mean you just spoke about uh also uh you mentioned domestic uh domestic clashes right domestic um uh how this might impact uh domestic politics not let's let let's just go back to Germany since Germany is is the one that is you know placing uh this law in order coming to effect on Monday but how do you think like if between Poland and Germany um could this shake up their future uh bilateral cooperations uh I don't know but it uh you know one thing is political um relations between Warson and and Berlin and uh you know when you hear prime minister of of a government in this casee Mr Tusk who says that the move by Berlin is unacceptable this is a very uh high level of being unhappy about the moves of of the neighbor uh so uh it doesn't vote well for for the future of Po Poland polish German um uh relation the same applies to the rest of uh countries who will be affected uh only as of uh uh next Monday which is the five countries in the west of Europe which I mentioned and uh but this is not only the political problem this is also uh economic problem Transportation uh cues On the Border uh you know trucks uh queuing because they have to be checked if they want to make sure that there are no migrants there and the problem is that it's not the first time that Germany uh is going against the tide uh uh in Europe because just briefly Mr badowski because we're we're we're running out of time but just just I want to mention northstream uh uh which was against the wish of of G of of the rest of Europe plus you know them saying Russians are fine but they were not fine and so um Germans Germans behave and very interesting to see how this is going to actually play out in the next 6 months uh of the beginning of this new border uh control law uh going into effect on the 16th of September this Monday that was director of TVP and chief editor of TVP World Mr mikal batovi thank you so much for having been with us here on world talks this evening and that come