Germany Announces Emergency Border Controls Amid Migrant Crisis

VIENNA — Germany announced on Sunday that it was invoking emergency powers to start protecting its borders, seemingly reaching a point of overload after greeting with open arms tens of thousands of migrants pouring into Europe, and urging other European nations to do the same.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière announced the decision to impose temporary controls on Germany’s southern border with Austria, after thousands of migrants have crossed over in recent weeks.

The announcement followed a meeting of top officials to discuss the migrant crisis, after the flood of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and other troubled areas into Munich and other Eastern cities continued unabated for the second weekend in a row.

The emergency measures, which are said to be temporary, would presumably allow Germany to turn away migrants from the Balkans and other areas whose citizens are not fleeing war or persecution.

 Mr. de Maizière said that it is “desperately necessary” for Germany to “limit the flow to Germany and to reinstate an orderly entry process,” after two weeks that left the country straining to accommodate and house the new arrivals.

He cited security concerns as the reason for the measure; national security allows European Union nations in the so-called Schengen zone the right to limit their open borders.

He called for the establishment of a “waiting zone” at Europe’s borders in Greece, Italy and Hungary, where those seeking asylum would be registered and wait to see which country would take them in.

Mr. de Maizière said he had consulted with security officials in Germany’s 16 states before making the decision, and had informed his Austrian counterpart as well.

Besides Germany’s difficulty coping with the growing numbers, the measure appeared to be a way for it to press its European partners to accept their share of the migrants, the day before European Union interior ministers were to meet to consider a package of measures, including national quotas.

“The measure is also a signal to Europe,” Mr. de Maizière said, warning that “introducing temporary border controls will not solve the whole problem.”

The European Commission said that Germany was in its rights to impose border controls, and in a statement said, “The German decision of today underlines the urgency to agree on the measures proposed by the European Commission in order to manage the refugee crisis.”

Earlier in the day, Mr. de Maizière had signaled that Germany was reaching capacity, saying that all of the refugees moving into Europe from the Middle East and other troubled areas cannot come to Germany. Because of its relative prosperity and welcoming stance, Germany is the most desired destination of the migrants, many of whom see their best prospects for a safe and secure new life under the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“We can’t allow refugees to freely choose where they want to stay — that’s not the case anywhere in the world,” he said in an interview with Tagesspiegel newspaper.

Germany had been saying it expected 800,000 migrants by year’s end, but had indicated up to now that it could handle all the newcomers, and even welcomed their addition to its aging work force.

But by Sunday afternoon, 4,000 migrants had entered Munich since midnight, following the highest number yet — 12,202 people — who arrived on Saturday. Since the beginning of the month , 61,000 people have poured into Munich, local police officials said, including about 20,000 last weekend.

And there were many more on the way, according to Austrian officials, who said they were coping with their biggest influx to date in the crisis, with at least 500 people arriving every hour by train on Sunday at the Hungarian border town of Hegyeshalom and crossing into Austria.

By 3 p.m. at least 7,000 people had streamed over the border into Austria, and were being transported by special trains and buses, mostly to Vienna, but also to other destinations in the country to prevent a bottleneck, said Lt. Col. Helmut Marban, spokesman for the police in Austria’s easternmost state of Burgenland.

”The influx is simply not stopping right now,” he said by telephone. “We really have our hands full.”

It is “the busiest day yet,” he added.

The migrant stream is believed to have picked up force in recent days, as many people try to get ahead of new measures in Hungary taking effect on Tuesday to tighten security at the borders. A popular land route takes the migrants into Turkey, through the Balkans and Serbia and to Hungary, as a gateway to Austria and what had been friendlier reception in Europe’s north and west.

The Hungarian authorities said that 4,330 migrants were detained Saturday for crossing the border illegally, an increase of 700 over the previous one-day mark.

The authorities said that Hungary’s controversial double fence along its border with Serbia was completed, and was being guarded this weekend by troops with weapons. New anti-migrant laws that take effect on Tuesday make it harder to cross the border, and also make it a criminal offense to damage the fence.

Already there were signs in other parts of Europe that migrants were trying out new land routes to bypass Hungary, hinting at new crisis points in coming days.

Germany’s move came amid more tragedy, as the Greek Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 34 migrants, including 15 children, in the Aegean Sea on Sunday after their wooden boat flipped over in strong winds as it attempted the short but often perilous crossing from neighboring Turkey.

An additional 68 migrants were rescued by the coast guard, and 30 more swam to the shoreline of Farmakonisi, a small island in the eastern Aegean, according to an official at the Greek Shipping Ministry.

“It was really windy in the morning, about 7 Beaufort, so their boat overturned a small distance from the shore,” the official said.

Rescuers, who were alerted shortly before dawn by a resident of Farmakonisi, found most of the bodies floating near the wreck. Divers recovered another seven from the cabin of the boat. Of the 15 children found dead, four were infants, the official said. The nationalities of the migrants were not immediately known.

A Greek Navy helicopter and several coast guard vessels continued to scour the area for possible survivors on Sunday afternoon. Rescuers were also seeking four children who have been missing since Saturday after their boat capsized off the island of Samos, north of Farmakonisi.

Also on Sunday, the Austrian police said they had rescued 42 people, including five women and eight children, from a refrigerated truck on a highway near the border with Germany. Two smuggling suspects were arrested.

Last month, 71 people were found presumably smothered to death in the back of a truck on the highway between Hungary and Austria, the victims of another smuggling operation.

 As the crisis continued to deepen, the 28-member European Union bloc seemed as far away as ever from coming up with a common solution. Efforts to distribute just 160,000 of the migrants through the member states to ease the pressure on countries like Italy and Germany, which have borne the brunt of the population surge, face fierce resistance as interior ministers are to meet in Brussels on Monday to discuss this and other proposals.