Overview

• At a Zugspitze summit, Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt and counterparts from five neighboring states and the EU migration commissioner agreed to accelerate deportations and speed up asylum processes.
• Germany carried out a flight deporting 81 Afghan men with criminal convictions to Kabul under Qatari mediation, prompting the UN rights chief to call for an immediate halt.
• Poland responded to Germany’s reinstated checks by imposing its own controls on the shared border, heightening tensions within the Schengen area.
• Merz highlighted that Germany recorded 6,121 expulsions in the first quarter of 2025, following 20,084 removals in 2024 and about 45,000 border rejections last year.
• Berlin is pushing to process asylum applications outside the EU’s external borders to relieve frontline states and expedite decisions.