A meeting between Mayor Claus Junghanns and his Słubice counterpart Marzena Słodownik and the German government's coordinator for German-Polish inter-societal and cross-border cooperation, Knut Abraham MP, focused on the border controls on both sides and their negative impact on the twin city.
The city leaders welcomed Knut Abraham together with Désirée Schrade, Chairwoman of the Frankfurt City Council, to a press event at the Frankfurt-Słubice city bridge. During the subsequent meeting in the town hall, Claus Junghanns and Marzena Słodownik asked to take a clear, joint message to Berlin with them.
Mayor Claus Junghanns: "According to the latest figures, asylum applications are down by 60 percent compared to the previous year. This is a development that must lead to a reassessment of the current measures. It is currently becoming clear that the effect of border controls, as they are currently being implemented, is no longer in proportion to the impact that citizens in our region on both sides of the Oder have to bear. Instead, border controls should be reduced and ended in the medium term. At the same time, the common security of the EU's external border must be strengthened and the European reception and distribution mechanisms improved."
Mayor Marzena Słodownik once again described the considerable disruption to the economy, border commuters and daily life in the twin city caused by the controls and the traffic jams they regularly trigger.
Marzena Słodownik: "Here in Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice, you can see particularly clearly what it means when we impose such massive restrictions on the greatest achievement of the European integration process, the free movement of goods and people. If Germany comes to the realization that border controls can be replaced by other migration control measures, the Polish side would also lift the controls for its part."
The Chairwoman of the Frankfurt City Council, Désirée Schrade: "The control stations are oppressive simply because they are visually noticeable. In addition, the effects of border controls in the twin city can be felt every day. Citizens feel that this situation is disproportionate. We are inviting the German government to visit us in the twin city to get a first-hand impression of the situation."
Background: The border controls at the Świecko and Stadtbrücke crossings are not only much more extensive than at many other of the 50 German-Polish border crossings. They also hit Frankfurt (Oder) and Słubice particularly hard because, with an average of around 25,000 and 20,000 vehicles per day respectively, they are the border crossings with the second and third highest traffic volumes on the entire German-Polish border.