Germany announced in early September that it would expand controls to its entire border, including with nine European Union member states, to combat illegal immigration.

One factor was a recent knife attack carried out by a Syrian national whose asylum application had been rejected. 

"Considering that the German authorities have identified around 50,000 unauthorized entrants in the first half of this year alone, we should probably not question this decision. In particular, these are Syrian, Afghan and Turkish nationals. In addition, Germany has taken in more than a million refugees from Ukraine as a result of the war, which is already a considerable strain on the country's capacity to absorb people," Läänemets told ERR on Monday.

"This is a justified decision by our partner, in line with Schengen law, which will have the greatest impact on Germany's own citizens who frequently cross the internal borders [of the European Union]," he added.

As a result, Läänemets stressed that he does not see the need to react in any way to what happened. "But we will certainly keep in touch with partners to keep abreast of developments," he added.

The minister said, to his knowledge, queues have not formed on the border with Poland or Austria as checks are random and not applied to every vehicle.

"Germany's aim is to better control its border traffic, partly due to internal political tensions. But Germany's interior minister has also stressed that this should cause minimal disruption to the economy, the movement of goods and life in border areas. It is also logical that Germany itself would not want to hurt its economy with border controls," Läänemets said.

The SDE chairman said there should be clearer distinctions between checks on the EU's external and internal borders.

The EU's rules permit Schengen countries to temporarily reintroduce border controls if necessary for security reasons.

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