Can freedom of movement survive Europe's migrant crisis?

Spectator

02-07-2025

Freedom of movement in the EU received another nail in its coffin yesterday after Poland became the latest European country to introduce checks along its shared borders with fellow member states. As of next Monday, Warsaw will start enforcing border controls at crossings shared with Germany and Lithuania.
The Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that he felt compelled to introduce border checks in particular to 'reduce the uncontrolled flows of migrants across the Polish-German border to a minimum'. The source of Tusk's angst is the tougher border regime introduced by new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz less than two months ago. Under the new measures, German border guards have been given the power to stop and turn back anyone trying to enter the country without the correct paperwork. The federal police have also been granted the power to reject asylum seekers at the border if they have grounds to.
Contrary to Tusk's accusation, the flow of migrants has been far from 'uncontrolled': according to the German authorities, just 3,488 migrants have been turned away at the country's shared border with Poland. But Tusk's barb speaks to the tension between Germany and Poland that has been growing for some time.
Merz entered Berlin's chancellery in May off the back of a violence-soaked election campaign in which the debate over migration raged thanks to the inflammatory, yet effective, rhetoric of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. More than 3 million asylum seekers have entered Germany in the past decade, placing a strain on crucial elements of the country's social infrastructure, piling fuel on the fire of the AfD's anti-migrant messaging and increasing the pressure on politicians in Berlin to be seen to tackle the issue.
Indeed, Merz's predecessor Olaf Scholz was the first to deal a blow to the Schengen Area system when his government introduced 'temporary' border checks in the autumn of 2023. These measures were extended most recently in February this year. They seem to be working: the number of illegal migrants entering Germany dropped from a post-pandemic peak of 127,549 in 2023 to 83,572 last year, with German authorities hopeful that that number will drop again to just over 30,000 by the end of this year.
Nevertheless, Merz made it a day one election promise to clamp down on illegal border crossings even further – not least to demonstrate to the nearly one in four Germans who voted for the AfD in February's election that their concerns over migration were being heard. Merz's legislation has not been without its controversy – his critics claim it breaches the EU constitution, while supporters say it is merely enforcing the terms of the EU's Dublin Agreement under which asylum seekers are obliged to seek refuge in whichever European country they first enter. Germany, of course, has no external EU borders.
In remarks certain to inflame tensions with Poland further, Merz hit back at Tusk yesterday: 'We currently have to implement border controls because the protection of Europe's external borders is not sufficiently guaranteed.'
But just as in Germany, the issue of migration goes back further than just the last few months in Poland, and the country now finds itself squeezed on both sides. Since late 2023, the country has also been experiencing pressure along its eastern border, specifically the 250-mile stretch it shares with Belarus. The Belarusian and Russian authorities have for several years now been waging a campaign of 'weaponised migration' against the EU, encouraging migrants mainly from the Middle East, Asia and Africa to travel through their countries and attempt to cross into the bloc along their shared borders with EU member states, including Poland. According to the Polish authorities, over 30,000 migrants crossed into the country this way last year, a rise of 16 per cent on 2023.
Migration featured heavily in Poland's presidential election last month, in which the conservative candidate Karol Nawrocki, backed by the Law and Justice (PiS) party, won. 'Order must be established on the western border,' Nawrocki said. As such, the domestic pressure is continuing to pile up on Tusk to combat the flow of migrants into Poland.
This latest blow to the sacrosanctity of the Schengen Area by Poland shows the extent to which the EU and its leadership are beginning to strain under the pressure, both literal and political, of Europe's ongoing migrant crisis. It also suggests separately that Belarus – and its overlords in the Kremlin – are succeeding with their policy of attempting to sow chaos and instability throughout the continent by weaponising migration. Poland almost certainly won't be the last to buckle under the pressure to curb freedom of movement around the bloc.
The former German chancellor Angela Merkel made it known this week that she disapproved of Merz's new border regime. 'If someone says 'asylum' at the German border,' she said pointedly while meeting with a group of refugees at the start of the week, 'then they must first be subjected to a procedure – right at the border, if you like, but a procedure.' But, as the tenth anniversary of her now-infamous open-doors asylum policy and rallying cry 'Wir schaffen das' approaches next month, the irony is not lost that, through her policies, this most Europhilic of politicians could be responsible for the bloc's weakening – if not total collapse.
Merz and Tusk's war of words gets to the nub of the problem the EU faces when it comes to dealing with the migration crisis it has now been experiencing for close to ten years. It is becoming increasingly clear that to have freedom of movement inside the bloc, the EU must protect its outer borders with a ferocity it can't – or won't – deliver. Until that moment comes, Merz has made the first move and made Germany's position clear: it is every man for himself.