The European Commission plans to assess Germany’s application of Schengen rules in March, according to reports from “Welt” and Politico, citing two individuals familiar with the matter. The evaluation will be carried out jointly with other member states and comes at a politically sensitive time: also in March the German federal government must decide whether it will extend the internal border controls that have been in place across all land borders since 2024.
This review falls under the regular Schengen evaluation mechanism. Earlier this year, “Welt am Sonntag” uncovered that Germany had entered Ukrainian citizens who had been imprisoned in Russian‑controlled facilities into the Schengen Information System (SIS) as those denied entry. As a result, these individuals were effectively barred from entering other EU states as well. The German Interior Ministry stressed that such listings were made only after individual case assessments and based on security‑legal evaluations, potentially incorporating data received through Europol. However, there is no statistical information on how often such measures are applied to specific groups.
Criticism of Germany’s border policy has come from several EU countries. Luxembourg’s interior minister Léon Gloden warned that the measures could burden cross‑border commuters and called for the Commission to adopt a more consistent approach. In contrast, CDU politician Günter Krings defended the controls, arguing that they are necessary to enforce European legal principles and to safeguard the long‑term stability of the Schengen system.
The Commission routinely coordinates reviews of Schengen implementation across member states. During these reviews, expert teams examine whether protective mechanisms and legal guarantees within the SIS are upheld.
