A long-running row over Germany’s internal Schengen border controls reached a crucial milestone on 12 November 2026, when the Administrative Court in Dresden opened oral hearings in two separate lawsuits that question the legality of police checks on the Czech–German frontier. The plaintiffs – a German citizen stopped this May while returning from the Czech Republic at the Breitenau/Krásný Les crossing and a dual Polish-German national checked on the Stadtbrücke bridge between Görlitz (DE) and Zgorzelec (PL) in September 2024 – argue that the spot checks breached Article 25 of the Schengen Borders Code because the German government has not shown that the “temporary” controls remain a measure of last resort. Their lawyers are asking the court to annul the individual police decisions and, by extension, cast doubt on the nationwide policy that has been in place on the Czech and Polish borders since October 2023. Inside the courtroom, government lawyers defended the controls as proportionate to “continued serious threats” posed by migrant-smuggling networks and cross-border crime. They also pointed out that the European Commission has not initiated infringement proceedings, even though Germany has prolonged the measure several times and now plans to keep it until at least 15 March 2027. Although the case concerns two individual encounters, any ruling that finds the checks unlawful would strengthen a series of lower-court judgments from Cologne, Munich and Leipzig that reached similar conclusions. Business travellers and cross-border commuters from Czechia already face random passport inspections, occasional vehicle searches and delays on the A17/D8 motorway and rail lines linking Prague with Dresden. A definitive judgment – expected in early 2027 – could either force Berlin to tweak the legal basis for the controls or scrap them altogether. For Czech companies with staff or cargo moving daily across the northern border, the hearing is a reminder to build extra time into logistics schedules and to ensure that non-EU employees carry valid residence permits in case of inspection. It also puts renewed pressure on the European Commission to clarify how long “temporary” internal border checks can last without undermining Schengen’s promise of friction-free travel.
Source: Expats.cz
