Germany urges Dutch to crack down on citizens' border checks
BERLIN (Reuters) -Germany's interior minister and the head of its federal police union on Tuesday criticised unofficial border checks by citizens in the Netherlands, saying they expected decisive action from the Dutch authorities to stamp out such practices.
A group of citizens carried out their own checks near the northern Dutch town of Ter Apel on Saturday evening, stopping vehicles to look for asylum seekers, local broadcaster RTV Noord reported on Sunday.
The news comes a few days after Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders toppled the ruling coalition in a dispute over migration policy.
While Wilders' party only shared power in the government, his anti-immigration views have shaped Dutch policy for decades. The Netherlands has some of the European Union's toughest policies on asylum and immigration.
German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt said on Tuesday there was no legal basis for the citizens' action.
"I believe we will indeed take another look at this if this phenomenon continues ... I also assume that the authorities will end such measures," Dobrindt, who introduced stricter border controls and immediate rejections for asylum seekers last month, said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
The head of Germany's Federal Police Union, Andreas Rosskopf, said the Dutch authorities' reaction had been "a bit too little", and urged greater efforts to avoid escalation.
"It must be clear that citizens without legal authority have no right to intervene, to monitor, and ultimately to carry out the tasks of the security authorities, the police authorities," Rosskopf told journalists.
Dutch broadcaster RTL reported that police found no criminal offence when they arrived at the scene.
Caretaker Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said citizens' frustration was understandable but that they must not take the law into their own hands.
"Let the police and military police do their job," he said on social media platform X on Sunday.
Dutch immigration has slowed significantly from a peak in 2022. The Netherlands received almost two first-time asylum applications per 1,000 inhabitants in 2024, slightly below the EU average, according to Eurostat data.
(Reporting by Riham Alkousaa, Markus Wacket in Berlin, and Anthony Deutsch in Amsterdam. Editing by Mark Potter)
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