The German Police Union (GdP) has said that extra controls recently introduced along the country’s border will only be sustainable for a few more weeks.
Around one week after Germany extended border controls to prevent people seeking asylum from crossing into the country, the chair of the German Police Union, Andreas Rosskopf, announced that the operation is unsustainable.
"The police can only keep up these intensive checks for a few more weeks," Rosskopf told Funke Media Gruppe, but added that the GdP supported the new CDU/CSU-SPD government’s decision to introduce more border controls.
Over 1.000 riot police have been deployed to patrol German borders since the newly appointed Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CDU) announced the extra checks in mid-May. The new checks only allow “vulnerable” people, such as children or asylum seekers who are pregnant, to enter Germany. Police have since turned away 50 percent more asylum seekers.
Rosskopf cited staff shortages and suspension of training programmes as the central reasons why German police were unable to keep up with the newly assigned tasks. Law enforcement is not the only sector affected; a February report by the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) warned that economic stagnation is inevitable unless the country welcomes migrant workers.
While the GdP has voiced its support for increasing checks, Dobrindt’s extended checks have been widely criticised, especially by the Left Party (die Linke).
“Not only is this against human decency, it is also against international and European law,” die Linke’s co-leader Ines Schwerdtner told Deutsche Welle, adding that her party would be ready to sue the government over the new policy. “We all know that this culture war from the right, from conservatives, only pushes society to the right.”
Though paling in comparison to the AfD's 20 percent share, Schwerdtner’s party saw unexpected success at the polls in February, taking 9 percent of the vote.
Now, largely unwilling to work with the AfD and unable to reach the two-thirds parliamentary majority it needs to pass certain laws, the CDU/CSU-SPD coalition is being forced to forge alliances further across the political spectrum.
Last week, senior figures in the CDU called on the party to scrap its 2018 resolution not to push through laws with support from die Linke, perhaps marking the beginning of a new chapter of cooperation between the opposing parties.
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