Poland temporarily reintroduced border controls with Germany and Lithuania at midnight on Sunday, saying they are needed to control illegal immigration.
The issue was central to June’s presidential election, where nationalist Karol Nawrocki—who ran on the slogan “Poland first, Poles first”—narrowly defeated the candidate backed by liberal prime minister Donald Tusk.
Interior minister Tomasz Siemoniak said the decision was taken purely to combat illegal immigration and insisted that Poles and other EU nationals would not face inconvenience. A total of 52 checkpoints have been set up on the border with Germany and 13 with Lithuania. The controls will last from July 7 to August 5, but could be extended.
Germany reintroduced temporary checks on its border with Poland in November 2023. Last month, Warsaw began accusing Berlin of sending irregular migrants who arrive from Poland back across the border.
“The German side is now actually refusing to authorise the entry of migrants heading to Germany to request asylum or obtain another type of status,” Tusk said Tuesday.
Poland says the controls on the Lithuanian border aim to stop migrants coming in from Belarus. Nationalist politicians accuse Tusk’s government of having “abdicated” to Germany on migration and of allowing Berlin to overwhelm Poland with migrants.
The German interior ministry last week said it would “do everything possible to find a good solution, a good joint solution.”
The Germans have proposed joint patrols, but the Poles have refused.