Tension and Rise of Far-Right in Tripartite Germany - Poland - Czech

German and English. Wer bei den nächsten Wahlen die AfD wählen will, weil er unzufrieden mit der Politik der Ampel ist, der scheisst auch in sein Auto, weil das Klopapier alle ist. Kapiert von den AfD

Berlin 8.54pm

After heated Poland - Ukraine, 2 months ago between Hungary - U.S. about visa, and 4 months ago heated or spat between Germany - Romania about Schengen, now another tension. Germany, Poland, and Czech.

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser will announce temporary checks on Germany's borders with Poland and the Czech Republic in an attempt to curb an influx of asylum seekers.

Faeser plans to announce "temporary controls at selected border crossings" on Wednesday, according to the official. The checks, the official added, will begin "within the next days."

German leaders have come under increasing pressure to crack down on the growing numbers of asylum seekers, many of whom are now crossing the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic.

Some 204,000 people requested asylum in Germany within the first eight months of 2023, 77 percent more than the same period last year.

German politicians are making a particular effort to sound tougher on migration ahead of state elections in Bavaria and Hesse on October 8. 

At a political rally in Bavaria over the weekend, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz linked the border crisis with an alleged visas-for-bribes scandal that has rocked Poland’s anti-immigrant government.

“I don’t want Poland to simply wave people through and then have a discussion about our asylum policy afterwards,” Scholz told a crowd in Nürnberg.

Scholz demanded the Polish government “clarify” recent accusations that officials in Polish consulates doled out large numbers out visas across Africa and Asia, granting access to the EU in exchange for bribes.

Members of Poland’s right-wing Law and Justice (PiS) party reacted angrily to Scholz’s suggestion the border crisis is connected to the visa corruption scandal, with Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau, asking the German chancellor to “refrain from statements that damage our mutual relations.”

The issue of border controls promises to be of particular sensitivity in Poland, which is holding a parliamentary election on October 15. In the lead up to the election, members of the PiS party have tried to whip up Polish voters with anti-German rhetoric and by demanding reparations for Nazi Germany’s crimes.

The imposition of spot checks may further inflame tensions between the countries.

Czech Interior Minister Vít Rakušan said Monday that Czech police will cooperate with their German counterparts on the border checks. Faeser has sought a similar cooperation with Poland, but has not yet managed to reach an agreement, the German official said.

For Scholz and his interior minister, both members of Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), the tougher stance on migration may have a great deal to do with the SPD’s flagging poll numbers. 

Support for the AfD party continues to grow in Germany According to the latest opinion poll, AfD is now by far the largest party in the state of Brandenburg (the region around Berlin). AfD is now 12 percentage points larger than Chancellor Olaf Scholz's SPD party.

Faeser is the SPD’s the lead candidate in Hesse and is running to be that state’s premier. But the SPD has fallen to only 19 percent in that state while the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is at 16 percent.

The SPD is also struggling on a national level, and is polling at 17 percent, behind the AfD, which is at 21 percent.

Germany will implement spot checks on crossings “we know are frequently used by human traffickers," the German official said. Using spots checks rather than more comprehensive border controls allows Germany to circumvent rules that require European Union member states to give one-month notification to the Commission before introducing border controls within the EU’s Schengen passport-free travel area, the official added.

Bavarian state elections take place on October 8. The conservative CSU has been in government since 1957 and is again leading the polls. Its chairman, State Premier Markus Söder, is feeling the pressure to perform better than last time, in 2018, where he lost over 10% on the previous election, garnering a mere 37% of the vote. This forced him to find a coalition partner, so he teamed up with the populist Free Voters, who have since been gaining traction.

Now, media-savvy Söder is calling for a limit to immigration nationwide, coining the term "Integrationsgrenze" (integration threshold) of 200,000 per year, a number that was already reached in August 2023.

Legal gray zone

Söder is looking to make the most out of the argument that he can keep Bavarians safe from illegal migration.

"As long as the EU's external borders are not effectively protected, we must secure our own borders," Söder said this week during a visit to a checkpoint run by the border police. "To that end, we are expanding the Bavarian border police force."

In 2018, he reinstituted Bavaria's state border police to patrol the borders with Austria, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.

Söder has touted the force as a "super success," last month telling the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag that it has "caught human traffickers, weapons smugglers, drug dealers, document forgers and terrorist suspects."

From the roughly 820 officers it now employs, Söder said he aims for 1,500 by 2028.

Bavaria's border police, which needed special permission from federal authorities to operate, cannot do much more than carry out spot checks and turn over alleged wrongdoers they find to federal police. In its own description on the state police website, Bavarian authorities acknowledge that the presence of the border force helps boost the "public's sense of security."

That has led critics to argue that the extra force is more an exercise in wasteful police cosplay than a substantive contribution to public safety.

Simply putting more police on the ground will result in uncovering more criminality, but "whether that justifies the costs of another 750 officers is a completely separate question," Stephan Dünnwald, a member of the Bavarian Refugee Council, a nonprofit support association, told DW, referring to an older figure of the size the border force.

"Of course, they have investigative success stories," he added. "But to say, 'We protect Bavaria's borders from illegal immigration and the like,' they don't have the authority to do that."

Recorded illegal crossings up

Through July, illegal crossings into all of Germany more than doubled compared to those recorded in the same period last year, according to a federal police report released by domestic media. Most of the increase was along the Polish border, which does not affect Bavaria. The state's border with Austria saw illegal entries hold steady at just under 9,800.

Bavaria's Interior Ministry is quick to paint a worsening situation. Its figures through August this year mark a jump of about 26% over the same period last year. That, however, accounts for the "unauthorized entries" that its border police registered, which does not necessarily mean the situation, in absolute terms, is getting worse.

A Bavarian model for Germany

Söder has called for the rest of the country to adopt the Bavarian model. That idea has been supported by Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU), which Söder's Bavarian CSU works with at the national level. Both party leaders have leaned heavily into law-and-order rhetoric in an effort to paint the Social Democrat-led federal government as weak on domestic security. They are also trying to win back voters who have recently given the far-right populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a major boost in polls.

Some of that support is built on public fears of migration even as the aging country needs skilled workers from abroad to fill jobs.

From the perspective of law enforcement, more police looking out for illegal activity can only be a good thing. Although Germany's federal police have exclusive jurisdiction over the country's borders, "it is to be welcomed that, in addition to police surveillance on the border, police search measures can also be carried out further into the country," Heiko Teggatz, the chairperson of the federal police union, told.

"The path that Bavaria is taking with its own 'border police' is fundamentally correct," he added, supporting a nationwide rollout along the lines of the Bavarian model.

But Dünnwald of the Bavarian Refugee Council is calling on the European Commission to step in and check whether Bavaria is complying with EU law that permits internal border controls "only under very certain circumstances."

"More police, more control, the whole situation finds itself in a legal gray zone," he said. "Where police operate in a legal gray zone, it doesn't strengthen rule of law, but weakens it."

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german language=

Wer bei den nächsten Wahlen die AfD wählen will, weil er unzufrieden mit der Politik der Ampel ist, der scheisst auch in sein Auto, weil das Klopapier alle ist. Kapiert von den AfD nur keiner, leider. Ist halt ne kleiner Minderheit von Rechten ohne Sinn für Demokratie oder Bürgerrechte.

Bundesinnenministerin Nancy Faeser (SPD) hat ihren Plan, stationäre Grenzkontrollen an den Ländergrenzen zu Polen und Tschechien durchführen zu lassen, nach Kritik der Polizeigewerkschaft verteidigt. »Wir bereiten erst mal stationäre Grenzkontrollen mit vor. Es geht um zusätzliche Kontrollen«, sagte Faeser im Deutschlandfunk. »Und wir müssen schauen, was das dann bringt.«

Die politische Insolvenz der AfD aufzeigen - für das KKR Fossilkunden-Magazin und seine Chefreporter ein verachtenswerter linksgrünversiffter Bubble-Fauxpas. Verständlich! Warum menschenfeindliche Politik kritisieren, wenn man auch Antisemitismus und Rassismus verharmlosen kann?

Die Ministerin ergänzte, für sie sei wichtig, »dass wir in der Fläche an der Grenze mit Personal vorhanden sind«, weil das ansonsten zu einer Verdrängung führe und die Menschen dann an anderen Stellen über die Grenze kämen. »Wenn wir Schleuser erwischen, wird es viel bringen, weil wir im Moment das Gefühl haben, dass jeder Vierte oder Fünfte über Schleuser ins Land kommt.«

AfD im Osten 50%<. dass die Ampel diese massive Wahlkampfschützenhilfe weiterhin betreiben will.

Erstmals sieht eine umfrage uns FW im nächsten Bundestag. Gute Entwicklung, um mittelfristig wieder bürgerlich-liberale Mehrheiten in Berlin zu ermöglichen. Ebenso um den Höhenflug der AfD zu beenden. In Bayern, wo es uns im Parlament gibt, sind sie nur halb so stark. Drei Kreuze wenn die Wahlkämpfe durch sind. Die Grenzen zwischen dissen und hassen verschwimmen in diesen Zeiten immer.

Menschen in Bayern entscheiden klug und nicht ideologisch. Zielkonflikt zw. Flächenverbrauch & Energiewende bleibt. Müssen genau hinschauen und jeweils sorgsam abwägen. Grüne & neoliberale Brillen helfen nicht. Stattdessen: Gesunder Menschenverstand.

Zusammen abgestimmt; das nennt sich Demokratie." Mario Voigt, Fraktionsvorsitzender CDU Thueringen, nimmt bei hartaberfair DasErste Stellung zur umstrittenen Abstimmung im thüringischen Landtag zur Senkung der Grunderwerbsteuer. Der CDU wird Absprache mit der AfD vorgeworfen. Es ist ein eigentümliches Demokratieverständnis, wenn ich jemanden um Erlaubnis bitten muss, was ich einbringen darf. Mein Maßstab für Politik ist, was meine Heimat voranbringt“ und „Die Menschen haben die Nase voll von Politik-Taktik“

Die Polizeigewerkschaft (GdP) kritisierte die Pläne der Innenministerin zuvor als nicht umsetzbar. »Wir sprechen uns als GdP gegen stationäre, feste Grenzkontrollen aus, weil wir das in der polizeilichen Arbeit nicht als effektiv ansehen«, sagte die Vizevorsitzende des GdP-Bezirks Bundespolizei, Erika Krause-Schöne, der »Rheinischen Post«.

Die Kontrollen seien eine »dauerhafte Belastung« und »sehr personalintensiv«. Die Bundespolizei wolle lieber »agil auf der Grenzlinie« agieren können. Ein Schlagbaum wie früher würde auch den Waren- und Pendlerverkehr behindern, merkte Krause-Schöne an. Zudem würden Schleuser einfach um die festen Kontrollpunkte herumfahren.

Thüringen fordert Lösungen auf europäischer Ebene

Aktuell gibt es seit Herbst 2015 vorübergehende stationäre Grenzkontrollen in Bayern an der Grenze zu Österreich. Sie werden vom Bundesinnenministerium bei der EU-Kommission angemeldet und jeweils verlängert. Die Kontrollen müssen in Brüssel mit einem Vorlauf von etwa einem Monat beantragt werden.

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