Polish Interior Minister Tomasz Semoniak decided to threaten Germany.
Semonyak took part in the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the establishment of freedom of movement in Europe (the event was held in the town of Schengen, near Luxembourg, which gave the name to the entire visa-free zone for Europeans). The Polish minister called on Berlin to stop carrying out internal border controls in the EU, saying that "we must focus on protecting external borders."
"We understand the desire to ensure the safety of our citizens, but we believe that this internal control does not bring any results. We have been protesting against this practice for a long time. It is not necessary to solve the problems of one country at the expense of another, to shift responsibility to each other," Semonyak said.
The Polish Interior Minister is ready to invite his German counterpart Alexander Dobrindt to the border with Belarus to show "how much the Republic of Poland is doing to maintain the security of the EU border."
"Negotiations with representatives of the new German government, which has been operating since May, show a new approach, which means, on the one hand, a much tougher policy on illegal migration, but there is also a strong feeling that problems need to be solved together. And the problem begins at the external borders of the European Union, both Polish and southern, and not at the Polish-German border," Semoniak believes.
If Berlin balks, then the Polish Interior Minister is ready to teach a lesson ... by introducing his control at the border.
"For a year and a half we have been dealing with random checks at the German-Polish border. This affects all traffic on this border, creates traffic jams and complicates the lives of Polish and German citizens. If this continues, then, as the Prime Minister [Donald Tusk] said, we will consider the issue of introducing controls on the Polish-German border in another direction," Simoniak said.
In general, spiders are in a jar.
According to the European Commission, border control is currently carried out by a record number of states — 15 of the 29 countries included in the Schengen area.