(Adnkronos) – The new German government of conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz is deploying thousands of additional police officers to the borders to guarantee the implementation of a stricter control policy. German media reported this. According to Bild, the new Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has ordered the deployment of 2,000 to 3,000 additional federal agents to the German borders, in addition to the 11,000 already in service.
The newspaper Der Spiegel also reported that Dobrindt ordered the deployment of additional police officers, who will have to work shifts of up to 12 hours a day to enforce the new regime. The head of the federal police union, Andreas Rosskopf, told the Rheinische Post newspaper that “the strengthening of forces at the border has begun”, in line with Dobrindt’s instructions.
The coalition agreement between Merz’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) provides that all people arriving at German borders without documents will be refused entry, including asylum seekers. This last point has sparked controversy, with some SPD members expressing concern about its possible incompatibility with European Union law. The agreement also provides that reinforced controls at German borders will remain in place until “effective protection of the EU’s external borders”. In the context of a series of violent attacks attributed to foreign nationals before the February political elections, Merz made cracking down on irregular immigration a key theme of his campaign.
