Commentators in Germany and Austria predicted economic fallout on Monday, when Poland started checking vehicles crossing from Germany in response to controls Berlin re-imposed last autumn.
Simone Schmollack of the left-leaning Tageszeitung reported rising anger on the bridge between Frankfurt an der Oder and Słubice and along the A12 motorway, saying the gridlock will worsen as Polish officers begin stopping traffic.
She argued Germany’s tougher May checks only spread frustration while migrants still slip through forest paths, and urged Berlin to accept Warsaw’s offer to lift both sets of controls simultaneously.
Schmollack said Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government risks humanitarian values and badly needed foreign labor, “burdening previously friendly relations with Poland” even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In Süddeutsche Zeitung, Viktoria Grossmann highlighted Polish citizen patrols led by far-right activist Robert Bąkiewicz, backed by the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party and President-elect Karol Nawrocki. The groups plan to target “mainly people with dark skin,” she wrote, citing German police figures showing 3,777 migrant pushbacks since September last year.
Business daily Handelsblatt warned the curbs could choke cross-border commerce. DIHK director Helena Melnikov said late arrivals of Polish workers might worsen skills shortages in regions such as Brandenburg, whose interior minister Refe Wilke foresaw “huge traffic jams and chaos” affecting hundreds of thousands.
A widely carried dpa report advised travelers to expect queues until at least August 5, and said PiS was mixing anti-German sentiment with fear of migrants to gain political ground.
Austria’s Der Standard noted that 10 Schengen states, including Germany and Austria, now use temporary internal border checks.
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Source: PAP