During a meeting of the interior ministers of German-speaking countries in Luxembourg, Federal Minister Alexander Dobrindt (CSU) and his Luxembourg counterpart Léon Gloden (CSV) agreed to liquidate the stationary border control post on the A64 highway in the area of "Dicke Buche" / Markusberg near Trier. From the beginning of May 2026, stationary controls will be replaced by mobile patrols of the Bundespolizei.
Just one day earlier, on April 27, 2026, the Administrative Court in Koblenz issued a ruling that strikes at the foundations of German border policy. In a case brought by professor of law Dominik Brodowski of Saarland University, the court found that the German identity check carried out in June 2025 on the border with Luxembourg was inconsistent with EU law.
This ruling is not yet final, and Minister Dobrindt immediately announced an appeal, downplaying the verdict as a "decision in an individual case" and emphasizing that only the Court of Justice of the EU can ultimately rule on the compliance of such actions with the Schengen rules. Luxembourg, however, welcomed the verdict with satisfaction, indicating that the judges' argumentation coincides with the objections that the country had previously submitted to the European Commission.
A key element of the ruling is the complete undermining of the basis on which Berlin justified the reintroduction of internal controls from September 2024. The federal government invoked a "migration crisis," which allegedly prevented the smooth functioning of the state. The court in Koblenz found this argumentation devoid of reliable evidence.
It was emphasized that the migration process has been ongoing continuously since 2015 and is not of a "sudden, unforeseen event" character ("sudden event"), which is a necessary condition for the temporary suspension of the Schengen rules. In 2024 and 2025, Germany had full administrative capacity to handle the influx of migrants under standard procedures. Instead of a one-off crisis, we are therefore dealing with a long-term phenomenon, which at the moment of introducing the latest restrictions was rather stabilizing than escalating.
Particularly compromising for the German administration is the absence of any reliable documentation. The court pointed out that decisions with such far-reaching consequences for millions of EU citizens were made without presenting hard data on the number of asylum applications, the capacity of local governments, the situation in schools or care facilities.
The entire argumentation was based on general "impressions" and political declarations, without "kein Nachweis" — that is, without any evidence in the form of documents. A similar lack of transparency applies to readmission procedures of persons to neighboring countries, including Poland, where the transfer of migrants often takes place on the basis of arbitrary decisions of services, without proper documentation.
In conclusion, the court found a lack of legal basis for legitimizing and identifying persons at the EU's internal borders. This is a direct violation of EU freedoms of movement. The state with the greatest economic and political power in the Union ignores court rulings and community principles when these collide with its current agenda.
One can get the impression of deliberate sowing of uncertainty and lack of substantiveness in public debate, which masks the ineffectiveness of systemic migration solutions.
