Merz: Strict asylum policy needed to stop Germany becoming overloaded
Germany's chancellor has defended his policy of turning most asylum seekers back at the border after judges ruled that it was likely to violate European Union law.
Days after Friedrich Merz took office last month with a promise to 'end illegal immigration', his government announced that migrants would be routinely rejected at the frontier if they could not prove they had a legitimate reason to enter the country.
There are only a handful of exceptions for particularly vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and unaccompanied children.
The legal foundation of this approach was shaken on Monday when the Berlin administrative court found it to be incompatible with EU rules.
The case was brought by three asylum seekers from Somalia who had tried to cross from Poland into Germany by train on May 9. They were stopped by border police at the frontier city of Frankfurt an der Oder and instructed to turn back into Poland.
The judges found that the rejection of the Somalis would 'at the heart of the matter, very probably prove to be illegal'.
The ruling may have implications far beyond the individual cases in question because it takes issue with the central mechanism the government is using.
The interior ministry argues that it does not have to follow standard EU asylum procedures because immigration has resulted in a national 'emergency'.
However, the court said the government had not provided sufficient evidence of a real emergency, such as a danger to public security.
While German law does not recognise precedents in the same way as English and Welsh common law, this kind of verdict does frequently influence other court rulings under the principle that everyone must be treated equally before the law.
Merz conceded that the verdict might have 'somewhat restricted the room for manoeuvre' but insisted that Germany could still turn back irregular migrants 'within the framework of existing European law'.
Speaking at a local government conference in Berlin, Merz said the border measures were necessary to maintain public safety and prevent Germany from becoming 'overloaded' by mass immigration.
After the tighter controls were imposed four weeks ago the number of migrants being turned away rose by 45 per cent compared to the same period 12 months earlier, according to Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister.
However, Poland and some of Germany's other neighbours have objected to the regime, which they characterise as a unilateral and poorly co-ordinated piece of political theatre, while the main police union has warned that border guards will not be able to sustain the checks at their present level of intensity for more than a few weeks.
Other critics, including several politicians from Merz's Social Democratic Party coalition partner, have also argued that the courts would inevitably strike the measure down as incompatible with Germany's commitment to international laws and conventions.
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