BRUSSELS — A new EU rule mandating that a higher proportion of passengers pass through electronic identity border checks risks “wreaking significant discomfort on travelers,” warned the head of the bloc’s airport lobby. But a Commission spokesperson insisted that the electronic check system, which first went into limited use in October with a higher proportion of travelers to be checked from Friday, “has operated largely without issues.” The new Entry/Exit System is aimed at replacing passport stamps and cracking down on illegal stays in the bloc. Under the new system, travelers from third countries like the U.K. and the U.S. must register fingerprints and a facial image the first time they cross the frontier before reaching a border officer. But those extra steps are causing delays. In October, 10 percent of passengers had to use the new system; as of Friday, at least 35 percent of non-EU nationals entering the Schengen area for a short stay must use it. By April 10, the system will be fully in place. Its introduction last year caused issues at many airports, and industry worries that Friday’s step-up will cause a repeat. The EES “has resulted in border control processing times at airports increasing by up to 70 percent, with waiting times of up to three hours at peak traffic periods,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, adding that Friday’s new mandate is “sure to create even worse conditions.” Brussels Airport spokesperson Ihsane Chioua Lekhli said: “The introduction of EES has an impact on the waiting time for passengers and increases the need for sufficient staffing at border control,” adding: “Peak waiting times at arrival (entry of Belgium) can go up to three hours, and we also saw an increase of waiting times at departures.” But the Commission rejected the accusation that EES is wreaking havoc at EU airports. “Since its start, the system has operated largely without issues, even during the peak holiday period, and any initial challenges typical of new systems have been effectively addressed, moreover with it, we know who enter in the EU, when, and where,” said Markus Lammert, the European Commission’s spokesperson for internal affairs. Lamert said countries “have refuted the claim” made by ACI Europe of increased waiting times and that concerns over problems related to the new 35 percent threshold have been “disproven.” That’s in stark contrast with the view of the airport lobby, which pointed to recent problems in Portugal. Under the new system, travelers from third countries like the U.K. and the U.S. must register fingerprints and a facial image the first time they cross the frontier before reaching a border officer. | iStock “There are mounting operational issues with the EES rollout — the case in point being the suspension of the system by the Portuguese government over the holidays,” Jankovec said. In late December, the Portuguese government suspended the EES at Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport for three months and deployed military personnel to bolster border control capabilities. ADR, which operates Rome Fiumicino Airport, is also seeing issues. “Operational conditions are proving highly complex, with a significant impact on passenger processing times at border controls,” ADR said in a written reply. Spain’s hotel industry association asked the country’s interior ministry to beef up staffing, warning of “recurring bottlenecks at border controls.” “It is unreasonable that, after a journey of several hours, tourists should face waits of an hour or more to enter the country,” said Jorge Marichal, the lobby’s president. The Spanish interior ministry said the EES is being used across the country with “no queues or significant incidents reported to date.” However, not all airports are having trouble implementing the new system. The ADP Group, which manages the two largest airports in Paris, said it has “not observed any chaos or increase in waiting times at this stage.”

BERLIN — Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt invited European Union counterparts to a migration summit on Zugspitze, Germany’s highest mountain in the Bavarian Alps, to draft proposals for stricter migration rules. Dobrindt, the Bavarian conservative in charge of executing German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s tough-on-migration turn, is set to host talks with interior ministers from France, Poland, Austria, Denmark and the Czech Republic on July 18. Also invited is the EU’s new migration czar, Austrian conservative Magnus Brunner, a spokesperson for the interior ministry in Berlin told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook. “Citizens rightly expect order, and more control and cooperation from politicians instead of powerlessness. We want to send this signal,” Dobrindt told POLITICO. The aim of the summit is a declaration containing concrete ideas — including on border protection and deporting rejected asylum-seekers to so-called third countries, or countries outside the EU — that are to be jointly pushed forward at the European level, according to the interior ministry. Germany was long among the EU countries with a more liberal approach toward migration. But the current government, led by Merz, has vowed to drastically cut the inflow of asylum-seekers under pressure from the far-right, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD), now the largest opposition party in Germany’s parliament. Just days after taking office this spring, Merz’s interior minister beefed up checks on Germany’s borders and vowed German police would turn away undocumented immigrants, including asylum-seekers — a move most experts deemed against EU law. The border crackdown fomented tensions between Germany and its neighbors, with politicians in France, Poland and Austria criticizing Merz’s government for inhibiting the free movement of people and goods within the Schengen Area. Earlier this week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Warsaw’s patience with Germany “is becoming exhausted” as he announced new checks on his country’s borders with Germany and Lithuania. Dobrindt and Merz defended the national border checks by arguing they are a temporary step while they work toward migration reforms on the EU level. “We must strengthen the possibility of repatriation,” Dobrindt told German magazine Focus in an interview earlier this week. “This requires the removal of the connecting element, as entailed in the CEAS, according to which refugees must have a connection to the country to which they are returned,” he continued, referring to the Common European Asylum System. “We want to abolish this and at the same time expand our strategic partnerships with third countries,” he added, without naming specific countries. In a similar move in May, the European Commission proposed changing EU law to allow the deportation of migrants to countries outside the EU — a proposal that human rights groups sharply criticized. In separate comments, Dobrindt also told Focus he wants to close a deal with the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to deport Afghans who were found to have committed crimes in Germany. He would consider making “agreements directly with Afghanistan to enable repatriations,” he said. All diplomatic and political ties between Berlin and Kabul were cut when the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Political posturing over migration has delivered yet another blow to Europe’s beleaguered free-travel zone. Faced with right-wing demands at home to control the flow of people arriving from outside the EU’s borders, the leaders of Poland and Germany are seeking easy wins which might placate populists — but put the once-sacred Schengen area on life support. Warsaw’s patience with Germany sending migrants back to Poland “is becoming exhausted,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said, as he announced the imposition of checks on his country’s borders with Germany and Lithuania from July 7. Almost four decades after the introduction of the borderless travel area that encompasses 450 million people from 29 countries — four of which aren’t in the EU — supposedly temporary border controls in the name of exceptional security concerns are increasingly the norm, creating the impression Schengen exists more in name than in substance. But with the rise of far-right parties and several years of migration from Ukraine — and before that, the Middle East — carveouts to the border-free zone rules have become an easy solution for politicians looking to show they mean action. “We consider the introduction of controls necessary,” Tusk said, pointing the finger at Germany’s “unilateral” action. In May, the conservative-led government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz ramped up checks on Germany’s borders, including with Poland, following pressure from Berlin’s own opposition party, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Warsaw’s patience with Germany sending migrants back to Poland “is becoming exhausted,” Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. | Rafal Guz/EPA German police will turn away more undocumented immigrants, including asylum seekers, Merz said. The move further bolstered border controls the previous government had already put in place October 2023. The crackdown riled Germany’s neighbors, including Poland, despite Merz’s promises to step up Berlin’s relationship with Warsaw — an alliance he considers key for driving a united European defense policy. While politicians have warned Germany’s controls could chip away at the free movement of people and goods within the Schengen area, critics have also called the border measures largely symbolic. Poland’s Fakt newspaper said that German authorities returned 1,087 people to Poland between May 1 and June 15 this year, pointing out that those numbers aren’t significantly different from last year’s. According to German police union figures, the new checks led to 160 asylum applicants being rejected in the first four weeks. It’s a small fraction of total refusals — on average, up to 1,300 people per week are rejected for lacking the necessary documentation. Germany’s move, however, has created a political problem for Tusk’s ruling centrist Civic Coalition. Having narrowly lost the presidential election to the populist Law and Justice (PiS) party, it’s feeling the hot breath of rightwing opposition parties that want a tougher stance on migration. Civic Coalition and PiS are currently neck-and-neck in POLITICO’s Poll of Polls and the hard-right Confederation has surged since the last general election in 2023. All 3 Years 2 Years 1 Year 6 Months Smooth Kalman Polish civilian vigilante groups tied to right-wing parties are staging patrols along the frontier with Germany. “Poland’s western border is ceasing to exist,” Mariusz Błaszczak, a senior PiS politician, warned last week. He blamed Tusk’s “servility toward Berlin.” Sławomir Mentzen, a Confederation leader, accused the Polish Border Guard of cooperating with Germany in accepting illegal migrants. The government has denounced those attacks. “Don’t play politics with Poland’s security. This is not the time or place for such actions,” Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s interior minister, said on X.  Poland’s retaliatory controls have also put Merz’s border policy in the firing line, with Germany’s left-wing opposition painting Warsaw’s decision as a clear setback. “This is a devastating signal for a German government and a ‘foreign chancellor’ Merz, who promised to regain trust in Europe,” Chantal Kopf, a lawmaker for the Greens, told POLITICO. Knut Abraham, a member of Merz’s conservatives and the government’s coordinator for the German-Polish relationship, in an interview with Welt also warned against lasting checks. While they are “necessary as a political signal that migration policy in Germany has changed … the solution cannot be to push migrants back and forth between Poland and Germany or to cement border controls on both sides,” he said. Merz on Tuesday defended Germany’s border checks. “We naturally want to preserve this Schengen area, but freedom of movement in the Schengen area will only work in the long term if it is not abused by those who promote irregular migration, in particular by smuggling migrants,” he said.

Poland will introduce temporary controls on its borders with Germany and Lithuania as of July 7, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Tuesday. The move follows rising tension over illegal migration within the European free travel zone. Tusk warned on Monday that his country would reimpose checks on the Polish-German border if it found that Germany was sending irregular migrants to Poland, Lithuanian media reported. He also said his country would take measures to prevent illegal border crossings from the Lithuanian side, as Poland had “a lot of effort, money, sweat and, unfortunately, some blood, to make the eastern border with Belarus air-tight.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday defended Germany’s border checks. “We naturally want to preserve this Schengen area, but freedom of movement in the Schengen area will only work in the long term if it is not abused by those who promote irregular migration, in particular by smuggling migrants,” he said. The interior ministers of Germany and Poland had discussed the situation during a lengthy phone call on Monday evening, Merz said in Berlin. “We are also talking to the Polish government about joint controls in the respective border hinterland,” the chancellor said. In response to Polish media reports, Merz said he wanted to clarify that Berlin did not push back asylum seekers who had already arrived. “Some people here are claiming that there is, so to speak, regular repatriation tourism from Germany to Poland … That is not the case,” he said. This story is being updated.

BERLIN — Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said he sees German Chancellor Friedrich Merz as a key partner in drastically cutting irregular migration to Europe even as tensions simmer between their countries over Berlin’s domestic border crackdown. “We need a solution to ensure that procedures take place at the external [European Union] border,” Stocker told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook Podcast, speaking of asylum claims. “Protecting our internal borders in the Schengen area cannot be the last answer. This can only be an emergency solution,” he said ahead of planned talks with Merz in Berlin on Friday. “I am very happy that I have a partner in Friedrich Merz who sees these things very similarly,” Stocker added. Stocker said he viewed Austria as “a pioneer” in promoting stricter European policies on asylum claims. Germany has long pushed back on some of the tougher European migration proposals, but Merz’s arrival has shifted that paradigm. Under pressure from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) opposition party, Merz’s conservative-led government has vowed to drastically cut the inflow of asylum seekers to the country. Just days after taking office this spring Merz’s interior minister increased checks on Germany’s borders — including with Austria — and said German police would turn away more undocumented immigrants, including asylum seekers. The border crackdown led to tensions between Germany and its neighbors, with politicians in France, Poland and Austria criticizing Merz’s government for inhibiting the free movement of people and goods within the Schengen area. Ultimately, the number of asylum seekers turned away at Germany’s borders was low, leading critics to disparage Merz’s crackdown as largely symbolic. Stocker downplayed the suggestion that Germany’s border controls had created significant tensions between the two countries, instead siding with Merz to form a tough-on-migration axis within Europe. “I believe that these restrictions do not have a major impact,” he said of the border controls. “If there is a need to control an internal border, and we have done so ourselves … I cannot deny other countries doing the same. In other words, these border controls are ultimately a solution that is not intended to be permanent, but sometimes it is a necessary one.” Germany has long pushed back on some of the tougher European migration proposals, but Friedrich Merz’s arrival has shifted that paradigm. | Oliver Matthys/EPA Prior to the European Council summit in Brussels on Thursday, Merz attended a gathering of anti-immigration European leaders that included Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen. “We are back on board with the topic of migration,” an official from the German chancellery said. Stocker, whose centrist coalition is also under pressure from the far right, said he favors the Commission’s plan to overhaul the EU’s deportation system, called for heightened controls on the bloc’s external borders, and urged that asylum procedures take place on Europe’s borders instead of within member states. “It’s a matter of coordinating our positions, while also coordinating how we deal with the issues discussed in the European Council at the European level,” Stocker said ahead of his Friday meeting with Merz.

LONDON — Britain and the EU have agreed a fresh Brexit deal that will see Gibraltar open its borders with Spain, abolish passport controls with the EU, and join the EU customs union. The British Overseas Territory will effectively join the EU’s Schengen passport-free area for the first time — meaning smoother crossings for the 15,000 people who commute across its borders daily. Speaking in Brussels on Wednesday, EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič described the agreement as a “truly historic milestone” that would remove “all physical barriers, checks and controls on people and goods” crossing the border while bringing legal certainty. Gibraltar’s government has sought such a deal for years — complaining that border crossings have become more onerous since Brexit, to the detriment of people living and working in the territory. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said the agreement meant that “the last wall on continental Europe” would disappear and free movement of people would reign. THE SHAPE OF THE DEAL To protect the integrity of the Schengen area, EU border controls will operate alongside British controls at the Rock’s airport — in a setup similar to the “juxtaposed controls” operating at London St Pancras Eurostar station. The territory has also made some concessions on taxation — notably on its very low tobacco levies. Albares said the “tax convergence process” would “ensure everyone is treated fairly.” While the deal includes a specific clause stating that it has no impact on the territory’s British sovereignty, it is unlikely to be welcomed by Euroskeptics back in the U.K. — for some of whom the territory is an emotive subject. Asked whether EU border guards would be able to stop British nationals from entering the British Overseas Territory, the Spanish foreign minister said: “Of course the European agent — that in this case is the Spanish police — will guarantee the full integrity of the Schengen area.” In a written statement issued on Wednesday afternoon, U.K. Foreign Secretary David Lammy said the situation his party inherited from the last government — which was in the process of negotiating a similar agreement — had put “Gibraltar’s economy and way of life under threat.” He said the deal would deliver “a practical solution after years of uncertainty.” Meanwhile, Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, said he was “delighted” with the agreement in principle. “I have worked hand in glove with the U.K. government throughout this negotiation to deliver the deal Gibraltar wants and needs — one that will protect future generations of British Gibraltarians and does not in any way affect our British sovereignty.” Both sides will now get to work turning the political agreement in principle into a legal text. Asked whether he believed the deal would be ratified, Šefčovič said he was “absolutely convinced.”

BERLIN — Poland’s top diplomat in Berlin has criticized the incoming German government’s plans to tighten border controls just days before the new regime is set to take office. “The current controls at the German-Polish border are already a problem for daily border traffic and the functioning of the EU internal market,” Poland’s chief diplomat in Berlin, Jan Tombiński, told POLITICO’s Berlin Playbook. “We therefore do not want to see a tightening of border controls.” The conservatives of chancellor-to-be Friedrich Merz and his Cabinet, who are set to take power in Berlin next Tuesday in a coalition government with the center-left Social Democratic Party, have long promised a tougher stance on migration in order to win back voters on the right. Merz vowed to introduce stricter border checks on his first day in office and to reject illegal crossings, including of asylum-seekers. “Anyone who tries to enter Germany illegally must expect to be stopped at the German border from May 6,” Thorsten Frei, the incoming head of the Chancellery, a powerful role akin to a chief of staff, reinforced earlier this week. When asked whether Poland would accept the return of asylum-seekers, Tombiński emphasized that Warsaw stands by its “obligations under EU legislation.” He explained that this includes the reform of the Common European Asylum System. Under the CEAS, countries may not reject asylum-seekers at their internal borders. A spokesperson for the Austrian interior ministry told POLITICO, “We are confident that the actions of the German authorities at the EU’s internal borders are in line with the legal system.” The spokesperson added: “The European Court of Justice has ruled that informal returns are not legally possible when an application for asylum is made.” Merz — whose top campaign promises also included pledges to improve relations with Germany’s neighbors (including Poland), and to take a more proactive position on the European stage — is set to travel to Warsaw on Wednesday, where he’ll have to defend his tough border policy. “Our aim is to achieve more at the European level, too. I am already holding talks with European partners on this,” Alexander Dobrindt, the incoming interior minister, said in an interview Thursday, without naming specific countries. “CEAS is going in the right direction, but is too slow … We want to achieve more,” he added. In order to conduct stricter border controls without overburdening its work force, the German police would need at least 20,000 more staff members, according to the chief of the country’s police union, Jochen Kopelke.    “We do not consider comprehensive controls and returns at German borders to be realistically feasible,” he added, in light of Germany’s 3,700-plus kilometers of borders.

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Gerald Knaus analysiert im Gespräch mit Gordon Repinski den neuen Koalitionsvertrag und benennt konkret, was eine echte Migrationswende ermöglichen könnte – und was bloß Symbolpolitik bleibt.  Es geht um Abschiebungen nach Afghanistan, sichere Herkunftsstaaten, das EU-Türkei-Abkommen, Drittstaatenlösungen, z.B. mit Kenia und um die Frage, ob Friedrich Merz und Alexander Dobrindt liefern können. Ein Gespräch über Realismus, Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Europas Verantwortung. Gerald Knaus ist Migrationsforscher und Gründer der Denkfabrik European Stability Initiative (ESI). Er gilt als Architekt des EU-Türkei-Abkommens von 2016 und berät seit Jahren Regierungen in Europa in Fragen der Migrationspolitik. Knaus verbindet wissenschaftliche Analyse mit politischer Umsetzbarkeit – und bleibt dabei ein kompromissloser Verteidiger rechtsstaatlicher Prinzipien.  In dieser Folge liefert er eine präzise Diagnose zur Lage – und einen konkreten Vorschlag für den Weg aus der Sackgasse. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

BRUSSELS ― The threat of a prolonged war in Ukraine without military backing from the United States is leading European Union politicians to contemplate the emergence of a fresh wave of huge numbers of refugees. “If Putin escalates this war even further and the American support should disappear, and if this should lead to a larger refugee movement … we need a binding distribution of the Ukraine refugees throughout the EU, according to a fair mechanism,” German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters Wednesday. In December last year, more than 4.3 million people were under temporary protection in European countries after fleeing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to Eurostat data. So far, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic have received the most Ukrainian refugees, and in the event of a new, larger refugee wave, “that will have to change,” Faeser said. Faeser added that she doesn’t currently expect another large refugee surge and that it’s “just a scenario” ministers have to discuss. Germany will stand by Ukraine “as long as Putin’s terrible attack against Ukraine continues,” she said. Europe’s political leaders rushed to X, formerly Twitter, to throw their support behind Ukraine after U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance held a shouting match with the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the Oval Office. But the topic of Ukrainian refugees taps into European reservations on taking in migrants, with deportations high on the agenda of an EU meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. Austria’s Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, who said he’d use his Brussels visit to formally inform the European Commission of the brand new Austrian government‘s intention to halt family reunification, treated the prospect of more Ukrainian refugees in much the same vein. Per capita, Austria has “clearly taken in more [refugees] than many other countries,” Karner told reporters. The country “has made its contribution” and now wants to focus on the integration of the people who are already there, he said, “That’s also the reason why we’re now stopping family reunification.”  In absolute terms, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic were hosting the highest number of refugees, with about 1 million people under temporary protection in both Germany and Poland. But when compared with local populations, the Baltics, Slovakia and Ireland were also key destinations. The temporary protection status, an EU provision that was first triggered for Ukraine’s refugees, means they have the right to work, live and study in their host country, although NGOs have warned that the temporary nature of the status has nonetheless undermined refugees’ integration. The local language, proximity to Ukraine, a local support network and the available information about local benefit measures all influence refugees’ choice to move to a specific country.

Bulgarian lawmakers voted in a new prime minister and cabinet Thursday after more than two months of negotiations. Rosen Zhelyazkov from the center-right GERB party was selected as Bulgaria’s prime minister. The powerful GERB party won 69 seats in the 240-seat legislature at Bulgaria’s election in October, the country’s seventh in four years due to its yearslong political deadlock. Zhelyazkov was supported by a broad coalition of leftist, populist and centrist parties, whom he thanked in a parliamentary address. “I will start a little unconventionally at the beginning by expressing gratitude to the coalition partners with whom we managed to reach an agreement in a difficult period, putting aside our political and ideological differences, and to reach the signing of a coalition agreement,” Zhelyazkov said, according to Bulgaria’s state broadcaster. Zhelyazkov added his government’s priorities would include protecting rule of law and ensuring Bulgaria joins the eurozone. It fully joined the EU’s borderless Schengen Area on Jan. 1 but is not a member of the EU’s currency union. Bulgaria has been plagued by political instability since 2020, when nationwide protests erupted over oligarchic mafia leaders taking control of state institutions. Protests also took place after the most recent election due to allegations of vote-buying. “My congratulations to Rosen Zhelyazkov on your election as Prime Minister of Bulgaria,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media. “I look forward to working with you for a thriving Bulgaria in a strong and united Europe. I also appreciate your support to our brave neighbour Ukraine.” European Council President António Costa said, “Wishing you success and looking forward to working together on a strong pro-European agenda for the benefit of all Bulgarians.”