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Germany expands border controls
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, announced on Monday that the country will extend temporary controls to all German land borders in what she describes as a response to irregular migration and to protect the country from extremist threats.
The interior ministry said that it notified Brussels of the order to set up border controls at the land borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark for a period of six months, the Associated Press reported.
The controls will begin on 16 September, and come in addition to restrictions already in place on Germany’s land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.
Faeser said:
We are strengthening our internal security through concrete action and we are continuing our tough stance against irregular migration.
The minister also said:
Until we achieve strong protection of the EU’s external borders with the new Common European Asylum System, we must increase controls at our national borders even more.
The move comes after a deadly knife attack in Soligen killed three people last month and after police in Munich exchange fire with a gunman near the Israeli consulate last week.
It also comes amid growing political pressure on the German coalition government, after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland won a state election in Thuringia this month.
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Ukraine plans to build a million drones by end of the year, prime minister says
Denys Shmyhal, Ukraine’s prime minister, has said that the country has increased its production of weapons this year, AFP reported.
“In the first eight months of 2024, we have doubled our weapons production compared to 2023. We are making progress. Drone production continues to grow,” the prime minister said, noting that Ukraine plans to build over a million drones by the end of the year.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said today that a large-scale drone attack on the Moscow region shows that the “Kyiv regime” is Russia’s enemy and Russia needs to keep fighting it, Reuters reported.
Ukrainian drone attacks kill one and force airport closures in Moscow
Luke Harding
Ukraine has carried out one its biggest drone attacks on Russia since the beginning of the war, killing a woman in the Moscow region and forcing the closure of airports around the capital.
Russia’s defence ministry said overnight it had shot down 144 unmanned aerial vehicles, including 20 over Moscow. Others were intercepted in multiple other regions, it said.
Moscow’s mayor, Sergey Sobyanin, confirmed that a blaze had broken out on the runway at Zhukovsky airfield caused by falling debris from a drone. Videos circulating online showed a fire burning next to a plane and a passenger bus.
Three out of four Moscow airports were shut, including Domodedovo international airport, which was reportedly targeted for the first time. More than 30 domestic and international flights were suspended, Russian agencies reported.
A main road into Moscow, the Kashirskoye highway, was blocked because of falling drone wreckage.
Here’s the latest polling from Germany.
Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders has praised Germany’s move to temporarily extend land border controls and said the Netherlands should do the same.
Nancy Faeser, the German interior minister, also said that the government has designed a scheme enabling authorities to reject more migrants directly at German borders, Reuters reported.
No details of the scheme were made public yet.
Austria’s interior minister, Gerhard Karner, told Bild that his country would not take in any migrants turned away by Germany, saying “there’s no room for manoeuvre there.”
Germany expands border controls
Germany’s interior minister, Nancy Faeser, announced on Monday that the country will extend temporary controls to all German land borders in what she describes as a response to irregular migration and to protect the country from extremist threats.
The interior ministry said that it notified Brussels of the order to set up border controls at the land borders with France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark for a period of six months, the Associated Press reported.
The controls will begin on 16 September, and come in addition to restrictions already in place on Germany’s land borders with Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Switzerland.
Faeser said:
We are strengthening our internal security through concrete action and we are continuing our tough stance against irregular migration.
The minister also said:
Until we achieve strong protection of the EU’s external borders with the new Common European Asylum System, we must increase controls at our national borders even more.
The move comes after a deadly knife attack in Soligen killed three people last month and after police in Munich exchange fire with a gunman near the Israeli consulate last week.
It also comes amid growing political pressure on the German coalition government, after the far-right Alternative für Deutschland won a state election in Thuringia this month.
