Calls to reopen German borders as Merkel urges discipline

There are growing calls in Germany for the country’s borders to be reopened.

Germany began to lift its coronavirus lockdown three weeks ago and announced the end to most restrictions last week. But its borders with most neighbouring countries remain closed.

Armin Laschet, the favourite to become the next leader of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrat party (CDU), called at the weekend for the border with France to be reopened.

“This would be a good time to send a signal to our neighbors that we are striving for a common European response to the pandemic,” Mr Laschet, who has emerged as a leading proponent of lifting the lockdown, said.

But Horst Seehofer, the interior minister, has refused to consider reopening the borders , claiming the closure is “part of the reason for our success so far against the coronavirus”.

Germany has suspended free travel under the Schengen Agreement and closed most of its borders. The current closure order expires at the end of this week, but Mr Seehofer has held out little hope of reopening, despite growing pressure from across the German political spectrum.

“Ensuring protection and open travel in the border regions as quickly as possible is a European responsibility,”, Norbert Walter-Borjans, the leader of Mrs Merkel’s main coalition partners, the centre-Left Social Democrats (SPD), said.

“Here in Germany, we need the interior minister to come up with more creative solutions than a relapse into the thinking of last century.”

The closures have proved particularly unpopular in border regions where many people routinely commute between Germany and neighbouring countries for work and leisure.

“Mr Seehofer must finally come up with a plan for the border regions that combines freedom of movement and health protection," said Anton Hofreiter of the opposition Green Party.

The calls come as Mrs Merkel on Monday urged Germans to remain disciplined as lockdown measures are lifted.

“We are in a new phase of the pandemic,” the German chancellor said in a brief statement.

“With all the loosening, we need the safety provided by people sticking to the basic requirements: that is, social distancing, wearing facemasks, and respect for one another. This is very important.”

Mrs Merkel’s intervention came after widespread reports of people ignoring rules that require facemasks while shopping.

Germany’s reproduction number, or R — the number each person with the virus infects — rose above 1 for two consecutive days at the weekend.

But government scientists have cautioned that infection rates are now low enough that comparatively small changes can cause wide variation in the statistics.

The R number will have to remain elevated for several days before it is clear evidence of a second wave of infections, the government-funded Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said.

The weekend saw widespread protests against the lockdown, with thousands joining demonstrations in Munich, Stuttgart and Berlin against the remaining restrictions.

Protesters accused the German government of exaggerating the pandemic and using it to clamp down on individual rights.

Among their number were anti-vaxxer campaigners, conspiracy theorists who claim the pandemic was manufactured by Bill Gates and extremists from both the far-Right and far-Left.

But the protest in Munich alone attracted more than 3,000 people are there growing concerns in Germany that the coronavirus is becoming radicalised as an issue.