“We are considering controls on the border with Germany because we are concerned about migrant traffic from Italy”, government spokesman Piotr Müller told Polsat News television, referring to media reports that Germany is to announce temporary border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic on Wednesday 27 September.

According to a source in the German government cited by the Politico portal, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will announce temporary controls at Germany’s borders with Poland and the Czech Republic in an attempt to limit the influx of asylum seekers.

According to Politico, the German government is under increasing pressure to deal with asylum seekers. Many of them are crossing the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic. Some 204,000 people applied for asylum in Germany in the first eight months of 2023, 77 % more than in the same period last year.

A spokesperson for the Polish government pointed out that Poland speaks louder about the migration problem than Germany and has done so for a long time. “In this context, we are talking about the Balkan route, the immigration route from southern Europe. That is why we have started controls on the Slovakian direction”, added Müller.

“We are concerned that any moment now there will be traffic from the direction of Italy. That is why we are considering some controls on the Polish-German border on our side, because we are afraid of this traffic coming from Italy”, explained the government spokesman.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday, in line with Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki’s decision, the Border Guard introduced permanent and ad hoc controls on the Polish-Slovak border on buses and other vehicles that may be carrying illegal migrants from that direction.

“For the past few weeks, we have been observing an increase in the number of foreigners travelling along the Balkan route through Poland to Germany”, said Anna Michalska, spokeswoman for the Border Guard. As she explained, the number of illegal immigrants has increased mainly on the section of the border with Slovakia. “In total, on both sections of the southern border, i.e. with the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this number has increased almost sevenfold”, she added.

Adrian Andrzejewski