Germany Extends Internal Border Controls With Austria Until November
The German Minister of the Interior, Nancy Feaser, has already sent a letter to the European Commission, to inform the latter that it will be extending its land borders with Austria for another half-year, AtoZSerwisPlus.de reports.
In the letter, Minister Feaser has insisted the decision is essential due to the absence of a sustained decline in irregular migration to Central and Western Europe.
“It is worrying that in 2022 the number of irregular migrations detected at the EU’s external borders was the highest since 2016,” the Minister wrote in her letter to the Commission, further pointing out that once again, Germany has been the main destination country in Europe last year for irregular migrants.
According to her, while Germany supports the joint efforts at European level to continue to maintain the border-free Schengen Area, it is essential for the Member States to be given better instruments for the control and management of irregular migration.
“As long as these have not yet been decided and implemented, there is a risk for the Schengen area with open internal borders,” she writes.
In the first three months of 2022, Germany has recorded a total of 87,777 applications for asylum, 80,978 of which by people applying for the first time in their life for asylum in the country, while the remaining 6,799 were follow-up applications. The majority of applicants were Syrians, Afghanis, and Turkish citizens.
Compared to the first quarter of 2022, this is an increase of 80.3 per cent.
In total, in 2022, the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees has received 244,132 asylum requests, an increase of 27.9 per cent compared to 2021. In addition, another 1,045,185 refugees from Ukraine have also reached Germany since the end of February 2022, which are not included in the above number of asylum seekers.
Overall in the EU, the number of asylum applications increased by 64 per cent in 2022, compared to the previous year, with a total of 881,200 applications filed at the Member States.
According to the EU agency of statistics, Eurostat, 46 per cent of first-time applicants in 2022 had Asian citizenship, 22 per cent had African citizenship, 17 per cent had European citizenship (non-EU), and 14 per cent had North or South American citizenship.
Due to the increase in the number of irregular migrants in the bloc, Austria has also decided to prolong border checks with Hungary and Slovenia for six more months. Like Germany, Austria has had border controls in place since 2015 and has been extending them continuously.
Currently, France, Iceland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, have internal border controls in place too, and the majority of them are set to expire in May. It is expected that all these countries will extend controls until November again in the following days.
