Poland to start controls on borders with Germany, Lithuania

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WARSAW (Reuters) -Poland will introduce temporary controls along borders with Germany and Lithuania on July 7, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on Tuesday, echoing several other European Union countries in reimposing frontier checks to stem illegal migration.

Tusk’s liberal government has been accused by nationalist opposition parties of accepting numerous illegal migrants being sent back from Germany. The government has argued that the numbers are limited.

Debate over migration in Poland has turned increasingly heated in recent weeks, with far-right activists starting to organise patrols along the border with Germany.

“We consider the temporary reintroduction of controls necessary to reduce the uncontrolled flows of migrants across the Polish-German border to a minimum,” Tusk told a government meeting.

Germany said in February that it was extending its own temporary border controls for six months.

Chancellor Friedrich Merz said on Tuesday Germany wants to preserve the EU’s Schengen open border scheme, which allows passport-free movement, but this could only work if it was not abused by criminals who smuggle migrants.

“We know that the Polish government also wants to impose border controls with Lithuania in order to limit illegal border crossings from Lithuania to Poland,” Merz told a news conference. “So, we have a common problem here that we want to solve together.”

Poland has been facing what it says is a migrant crisis orchestrated by Belarus and Russia on its eastern border since 2021. Both countries deny encouraging migrants to cross.

(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, additional reporting by Rachel More and Madeline Chambers)