Bavarian border police more important than ever – Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann contradicts FDP demand to dissolve: Significantly more security through close-meshed control network

Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann has described the Bavarian FDP’s call for the abolition of the Bavarian border police as “security policy humbug”. He said that anyone who wanted such a thing did not care about the security of citizens. “The work of the Bavarian Border Police is more important than ever,” Herrmann argued. “That is why the Bavarian Border Police will be significantly expanded.” Since its establishment in July 2018, the number of border police officers has already risen by 300 to 800, with a target of 1,000 posts in 2025, he said, adding state-of-the-art equipment. “With our close-meshed control network in the area near the border, we are improving the security situation not only in Bavaria, but throughout Germany,” the interior minister stressed.
According to Herrmann, the necessity of the Bavarian Border Police is evidenced by the balance sheet for 2022, with significantly more unauthorized entries and smugglers detected, narcotics seized, illegal weapons, manhunts and other crimes. “Tens of thousands of criminals are caught by our border investigators every year, and the trend is rising,” clarified Herrmann, who ordered targeted reinforcement of the dragnet controls last October.
According to Herrmann, the protection of the EU’s external borders is still completely inadequate and urgently needs to be improved. An evaluation by the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, according to which around two-thirds of asylum seekers who came to Germany in 2022 had not previously been registered in another EU country, even though they had obviously crossed the EU’s external border, confirmed this, he said. “The fact that more and more people are entering the EU completely uncontrolled is an increasing security risk,” the interior minister warned. “Without a doubt, stationary border controls with Austria are unfortunately still urgently needed beyond May 2023.”
In 2022, Bavarian border investigators made a total of 21,090 search hits (2021: 17,901; +17.8 percent) during the dragnet controls, temporary border controls on the border with Austria and border controls at the Bavarian airports in Nuremberg and Memmingen. For example, because an arrest warrant had been issued or a vehicle had been put on the wanted list for theft. Since the establishment of the Bavarian Border Police, the number of wanted persons has already totaled around 77,000 cases. In addition, Bavarian border police officers uncovered 1,116 cases in the area of weapons and explosives offenses in 2022, which is 61.0 percent more than in the previous year. In the area of document crimes, there were 1,576 cases (+15.2 percent), which include, for example, passport forgery or the misuse of ID cards, and in the area of narcotics crime, 3,708 cases (+36.2 percent).
The quantity of drugs seized rose by 20.7 percent to 414 kilograms (2021: 343 kilograms). In addition, border investigators detected 3,068 cases of unauthorized entry last year (2021: 1,942, +58.0 percent). In addition, there were 191 cases of smuggling (2021: 183, +4.4 percent).