In March, the European Commission plans to review how Germany applies Schengen rules, reports the “Welt” and Politico citing two people familiar with the procedure. The evaluation will be carried out jointly with other EU member states, at a particularly politically sensitive time, because the German government also must decide in March whether to extend the expanded internal border controls that have been in place at all land borders since 2024.
The review falls under the regular Schengen evaluation mechanism. An earlier investigation by “Welt am Sonntag” found that Germany had listed Ukrainian nationals who were imprisoned in Russian‑controlled prisons in the Schengen Information System (SIS) as persons barred from entry. Consequently, those individuals could be denied entry in other EU states as well.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior emphasized that such listings occurred only after case‑by‑case assessments and were based on security‑legal evaluations, with Europol‑supplied information potentially considered. However, no statistical data exist on how these measures have been applied to specific groups.
Criticism of Germany’s border policy comes from several EU countries. Luxembourg’s interior minister, Léon Gloden, warned of the burdens on cross‑border commuters and called for a more consistent approach from the Commission. In contrast, CDU politician Günter Krings defended the controls as necessary to uphold European legal principles and protect the long‑term integrity of the Schengen system.
The Commission routinely coordinates reviews of Schengen implementation in member states, ensuring that protective mechanisms and legal guarantees within the SIS are respected.