Concern over a migration domino effect

Berlin’s decision to impose temporary controls on Germany’s land borders is eliciting strong reactions within Europe, putting the migration issue back on the EU’s agenda just months after a historic agreement to resolve it.

The concern revolves around a possible “domino effect” with the introduction of similar measures in other member-states.

Moreover, Germany’s decision last year to stop accepting asylum seekers means in practice that they will return to the countries where they were originally registered, namely Greece and Italy. 

Greek government sources insist, however, that the country is doing what must be done and that the increased secondary flows to Germany are due to the high benefits paid to migrants, which make it an attractive final destination. According to an EU Commission spokesman on Tuesday, a total of 2,132 applications for the return of migrants in 2023 from Germany were accepted by Italy. Germany in total submitted 74,622 requests in 2023 to other EU member-states to take back migrants on the basis of the Dublin Regulation, but in the end only 5,053 were returned to the host countries.

Further compounding European concerns is Ankara’s push for visa relaxation for Turkish citizens, after an 82% increase in applications last year.

The move by Berlin coincides with the rapid rise of the far-right in Germany ahead of elections in two weeks in Brandenburg – and after the victory of the anti-immigration party, Alternative for Germany (AfD), in the local elections in Thuringia – which appears to be “pushing” the center-right parties, and the ruling social democratic SPD, even further to the right. Despite the appeal to “national security” reasons, the German government’s decision to reintroduce border controls seems to be driven by the rise of the far-right, rather than by a real “emergency” situation experienced by host countries such as Italy and Greece.

Representatives of the political alliance of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union (CSU) even walked out on Tuesday before a discussion had even been concluded with the federal government and representatives of the federal states on a “common approach to immigration and asylum policy.”

The alliance spokesperson said that the German government’s proposals to reject asylum seekers at the German border were not satisfactory enough.

For his part, CDU leader Friedrich Merz was particularly critical, commenting on X that the coalition government was “capitulating to the challenge of irregular migration. The federal government is incapable of action and leadership.”