Luxembourg’s Home Affairs Minister, Léon Gloden, has said his country will address a formal complaint to the European Commission this month, in response to Germany’s decision to extend its internal border controls until September.
Gloden said that “We will send a letter of complaint to the EU Commission this month,” in Parliament on Thursday, Schengen.News reports.
Arguing that the measure is helping combat irregular migration, the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, on February 12, said that internal border controls with its neighbouring country of Luxembourg and all other bordering countries would be extended for an additional six months, once the existing one expires.
While the current measure is expected to last until March 15, Scholz confirmed that with the new changes border controls will be extended until September 15, 2025.
We have again ordered temporary controls at all German borders for six months and notified the European Commission.
Increased Pressure to Take Germany to EU Court
Luxembourg’s LSAP, the largest opposition party, called for Luxembourg to take Germany’s decision to extend border controls to the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
LSAP MP Yves Cruchten said that Luxembourg’s Home Affairs Minister’s previous steps to take action against the controls were not enough.
While Germany argues that border controls help to prevent attacks such as those in Magdeburg or Munich, Cruchten questioned their effectiveness, as quoted by the Luxembourg Times.
Unfortunately, we do not believe that border controls in Wasserbillig or Perl will prevent such attacks.
However, Cruchten’s motion was rejected by the CSV and DP, with Golden arguing that it wouldn’t be very effective.
According to Gusty Graas (DP), involving the EU Commission would be a better approach than taking legal action.
Germany Claims Border Controls Have Proven Effective
Germany’s Ministry of Interior Nancy Faeser, said that border controls have proven to be effective and continue to be necessary.
The federal police will continue to carry out checks at all German borders. Today I ordered these checks for a further six months. Because our actions are effective and are still necessary.
Announcing the new changes, authorities in Germany ensured that frontier checks would be carried out in such a manner that would affect travel and commuter traffic as little as possible.
The figures from the German Ministry of Interior revealed that since September 16, 2024, when border controls took effect a large number of irregular entries were registered. In addition, the German Federal Police detected nearly 80,000 irregular entries since mid-September.
