Poland reinstates border controls with Germany, Lithuania amid migration fears

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00:00Poland has temporarily reintroduced border controls with Germany and Lithuania,

00:06saying they're needed to control illegal immigration.

00:09The issue was central to June's presidential election,

00:12where the nationalist Karol Nawrowski, who ran on a slogan of Poland first,

00:17Poles first, narrowly defeated the candidate backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

00:20The government now is seeking to outflank its rivals by taking a tough approach to immigration.

00:27We're going to cross to Brussels, talk to our correspondent Dave Keating, who joins us from there.

00:31Dave, Poland taking unilateral action here, not just against Germany and Lithuania,

00:36but really against the way Europe and the whole of the Schengen zone area works.

00:43Exactly. This is a move not just with implications for Poland's neighbours, but for all of the EU,

00:48because it is, in spirits at least, a violation of the Schengen code,

00:53which means you can travel between EU countries without a passport.

00:58And this is exactly what people warned about when Germany did this to all nine of its Schengen neighbours back in May.

01:05People warned about this domino effect coming out from the centre of the EU

01:10because of the actions of the new Conservative government in Germany, under Chancellor Friedrich Merz,

01:16that this was going to spread. And indeed, now we see that it's spreading.

01:20So the Schengen code started in the 1990s. It means that you can travel between EU countries

01:26basically the same way you would travel between US states without having to show any identification,

01:32without having to cross a passport check.

01:36But what we've seen over the past 15 years is this code being steadily eroded away

01:41because even though the Schengen code says countries are not allowed to set up these passport checks,

01:46it does allow for temporary passport controls without infrastructure for a period of six months.

01:54And what's happened is that countries have used the flimsiest of excuses,

01:58even though this is supposed to be only for emergency situations,

02:01because this is a very easy political move to do to make it look like you're doing something about migration,

02:08even though the evidence does not suggest this actually helps in any significant way.

02:12So what we've seen is the Commission kind of turning a blind eye as countries just renew these six-month temporary exemptions over and over,

02:22and we're very quickly heading to a situation where Schengen exists only on paper and not in practice.

02:28Which, you know, there's three main ways that people feel this.

02:31Most people feel this at airports.

02:33It means that when you're traveling within the EU, you don't have to go through a passport exit check,

02:38and then when you arrive, go through a new passport check.

02:41People flying to the UK or Turkey will know that that's the case when you go to countries like that.

02:46When you're traveling within the EU, it saves a lot of time.

02:49You can get to the airport later, stuff like that.

02:52But the more significant economic impacts of this is goods traveling between countries at those land borders.

02:57It means all those trucks get held up at the border.

03:00That slows deliveries, requires new infrastructure to serve the truck drivers waiting at the border,

03:05and that adds costs to the price of goods.

03:09So what Poland is doing here is actually increasing the grocery bills for everybody in Europe

03:14because it makes all those trucks back up at the border.

03:17So, Dave, has there been or is there likely to be any hit back, if you like, from other European leaders?

03:24Well, we've seen Chancellor Merz hit back against the suggestion that Germany is sending migrants over to Poland

03:31after their asylum requests are rejected.

03:34He firmly rejected that which has been seized upon by the far right in Poland,

03:39which, as you said, now controls the presidency effectively.

03:43He hit back on that.

03:44But the thing is, that's about all he can say.

03:46He said Germany remains committed to the Schengen area,

03:49but he can't really condemn Poland for doing this because Germany is doing the exact same thing.

03:55Same thing for Lithuania.

03:56We saw very, very light pushback from Lithuania.

04:00Really, no leader in the EU right now is very well equipped to push back on this because they're all doing it.

04:06The person who needs to push back on this is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen,

04:10and she hasn't.

04:11She didn't push back in May when Germany, the Chancellor from her own political party,

04:16from her own country, did this.

04:18And so now they're really stuck.

04:20Again, we have not seen a significant reaction from the Commission.

04:23A spokesperson simply said that these temporary exemptions are allowed

04:27and wouldn't be drawn on whether countries are abusing it.

04:31This is the steady problem with President von der Leyen.

04:34In a lot of people's eyes, her critics say that she is too acquiescent with the national governments

04:40and the EU, that she's always afraid to criticize them and push back,

04:44which is actually her role as the guarantor of the treaties, which includes the Schengen Treaty.

04:49Okay.

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