Business leaders from Szczecin and the wider West Pomeranian region have stepped up pressure on Berlin to lift temporary checks on the Polish-German land frontier, saying the measures are eroding the free movement of goods and labour guaranteed by Schengen. At a press briefing on 16 June, the Północna Izba Gospodarcza (Northern Chamber of Commerce) argued that lengthy controls after holiday weekends cause lorry queues of up to 15 km in Zgorzelec and add hidden costs to supply chains serving Baltic ports.
![West Pomeranian Firms Warn German Border Checks Are Hitting Cross-Border Trade]()
Companies that need to keep personnel and cargo moving smoothly despite these disruptions can turn to VisaHQ for fast, expert assistance with Schengen visas, work permits and other cross-border documentation. The service’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) provides real-time updates on entry requirements and offers end-to-end processing support—helping hauliers, exporters and posted workers minimise administrative delays when navigating the shifting frontier rules.
Germany re-introduced the controls in 2023 to curb secondary migration, and has rolled them over every six months despite a 40 percent drop in irregular crossings this year. Polish companies claim the policy undermines their ‘geographical rent’—the attraction of investing near the border for just-in-time deliveries into Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg. Anecdotal evidence suggests several German investors have frozen warehouse projects in the Gryfino Special Economic Zone until the situation normalises. The European Commission last week urged Berlin to phase the checks out now that the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact is in force, but the German interior ministry insists they will remain until all member states implement fingerprinting and Eurodac upgrades. Polish haulage federation ZMPD estimates that each extra hour at the frontier costs a truck €50 in fuel and driver overtime—expenses ultimately passed on to exporters. Local authorities on both sides have proposed a pilot fast-lane using automatic number-plate recognition for vehicles enrolled in the EU Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) scheme, but this requires bilateral agreement. In the meantime, corporate mobility managers are advising posted workers to carry additional ID and to expect random secondary checks when commuting to German client sites. Analysts warn that if the controls persist into the fourth quarter, they could dampen peak-season throughput at the Port of Szczecin-Świnoujście and hurt Poland’s record-breaking export momentum.
Companies that need to keep personnel and cargo moving smoothly despite these disruptions can turn to VisaHQ for fast, expert assistance with Schengen visas, work permits and other cross-border documentation. The service’s Poland portal (https://www.visahq.com/poland/) provides real-time updates on entry requirements and offers end-to-end processing support—helping hauliers, exporters and posted workers minimise administrative delays when navigating the shifting frontier rules.
Germany re-introduced the controls in 2023 to curb secondary migration, and has rolled them over every six months despite a 40 percent drop in irregular crossings this year. Polish companies claim the policy undermines their ‘geographical rent’—the attraction of investing near the border for just-in-time deliveries into Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Brandenburg. Anecdotal evidence suggests several German investors have frozen warehouse projects in the Gryfino Special Economic Zone until the situation normalises. The European Commission last week urged Berlin to phase the checks out now that the EU’s new Migration and Asylum Pact is in force, but the German interior ministry insists they will remain until all member states implement fingerprinting and Eurodac upgrades. Polish haulage federation ZMPD estimates that each extra hour at the frontier costs a truck €50 in fuel and driver overtime—expenses ultimately passed on to exporters. Local authorities on both sides have proposed a pilot fast-lane using automatic number-plate recognition for vehicles enrolled in the EU Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) scheme, but this requires bilateral agreement. In the meantime, corporate mobility managers are advising posted workers to carry additional ID and to expect random secondary checks when commuting to German client sites. Analysts warn that if the controls persist into the fourth quarter, they could dampen peak-season throughput at the Port of Szczecin-Świnoujście and hurt Poland’s record-breaking export momentum.
