Posselt: Sudeten Germans refuse checks on the border with the Czech Republic – News

“We Sudeten Germans are strongly against the introduction of stationary checks on the German-Czech border, as the Prime Ministers of Saxony and Brandenburg unfortunately request. I’m glad (Bavarian Prime Minister) Markus Söder didn’t join them,” Posselt said.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala held talks with Söder in Bavaria about two weeks ago, who told him that Bavaria does not demand stationary checks on the border with the Czech Republic. Söder justified this, among other things, by the fact that the Czech Republic protects its borders well.

“I am definitely against controls. And at the Sudeten German convention, we will emphasize that we Sudeten Germans do not want any border controls between Bavaria and Bohemia in the heart of Europe. This does not belong to Europe, it is not European, it is anti-European,” added Posselt.

Faeser, who decides on the controls, rejected the demands of Brandenburg and Saxony and announced on Thursday that Germany would strengthen police patrols on this border due to illegal migration. The police will be supplemented by mobile units and the police will more intensively carry out so-called hidden random checks.

Czech Minister of the Interior Vít Rakušan met with Faeserová on Friday in Petrovice in Ústěk, with whom he agreed that the reintroduction of controls is only a last resort. The German minister said that open borders are important for the everyday life of citizens and she would not like to change that. That is why Germany abandoned the reintroduction of controls, she added.

This month, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz agreed with the premiers of the federal states that, depending on the migration situation, Germany can introduce temporary border controls with its neighbors along the lines of those it has been carrying out since 2015 on the border with Austria. However, these controls are not across the entire length of the border with Austria, but only at selected crossing points.