Border controls started in NRW – WELT

Aachen/Düsseldorf (dpa/lnw) Temporary border controls with Belgium and the Netherlands have started in North Rhine-Westphalia. Federal police officers checked people entering from Belgium on the A44 near Aachen on Monday morning on the North Rhine-Westphalian side, as a reporter from the German Press Agency observed. Earlier information from a spokesman for the Federal Police NRW said that there would be no stationary checkpoints, but rather a mobile concept for border controls.

“We will carry out random checks at specific times and at different points in the flow of traffic,” the spokesman told the German Press Agency on Friday. There will be no full checks and not everyone who crosses the border will be checked. “However, everyone must be prepared to be checked without reason when crossing the border,” the spokesman said.

Patrol cars, police motorcycles and civilian vehicles would be used for the additional checks. Commuters and tourist traffic should be affected as little as possible. According to an internal decree of the NRW Ministry of the Interior, the North Rhine-Westphalian police should support the federal police in the checks at the land borders.

Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) recently ordered that border controls should be introduced at all German land borders from Monday in order to further reduce the number of illegal entries. The additional controls will initially last for six months. This affects France, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. Such controls already exist at the borders with Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland. They are not actually planned in the Schengen area.