Border with Poland - controls now on both sides

Poland's border guards have begun the announced checks at the border with Germany. Since midnight, travelers have been checked at 52 border crossings, as the Ministry of the Interior announced on X.

At a checkpoint in Krajnik Dolny, officers in police vests supported by the military police stop drivers coming from the Brandenburg town of Schwedt in the morning - for example Germans who want to refuel cheaply in Poland before the start of their working day. Trucks are not checked.

The uniformed officers usually wave vehicles with Polish license plates on their way from Frankfurt/Oder to Slubice through at the border. Cars with German license plates are stopped briefly. Pedestrians are consistently checked here.

Poland's interior minister: controls against smugglers

"The controls are aimed at those involved in the illegal smuggling of migrants across the border. Normal travelers have nothing to fear," said Poland's Interior Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, according to a post by his office. Border guards are particularly keeping an eye on minibuses, cars with many occupants and vehicles with tinted windows.

The controls are initially set to last until August 5. Travelers who want to cross the border must have an identity card or passport with them.

Controls will also be carried out at 13 border crossings with Lithuania. Polish border guards arrested an Estonian citizen there in the early hours of the morning. He reportedly had four people in his car who wanted to enter the country irregularly.

The center-left government in Warsaw ordered the controls in response to German border controls. Germany has already been carrying out random checks at the border with Poland since October 2023 in order to stop irregular migration.

Offer from Dobrindt

Federal Minister of the Interior Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) ordered more intensive border controls shortly after the new federal government took office in May. At the same time, he ordered that asylum seekers could also be turned back at the border in future. The rejections from Germany are a controversial topic in Poland - partly because right-wing activists have spread the rumor that German officials are transporting asylum seekers who were not previously in Poland to the neighbouring country.

Dobrindt has offered his Polish counterpart joint controls on the German side of the common border, according to his own words. So far, however, this offer has not been accepted.

Representatives of German business associations in the border region had pointed out the negative consequences of border controls for the movement of goods and commuters.

Oliver from Eberswalde is in Schwedt once a week for work and then drives to Poland to refuel. He says about the checks: "They don't really bother me that much, it's good for security that there's less smuggling." It's only difficult when the border guards don't speak German and you don't know what exactly they want. But as long as only the papers are checked and not the trunk, it's fine, says the young man.