Germany has announced plans for reopening its borders as of Saturday. The borders will be reopened on a country-by-country basis, and the coronavirus-related checks will remain in place until at least June 15.
Interior minister Horst Seehofer said that all border crossings with Austria, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and Switzerland will be reopened as of Saturday.
The borders with France, Austria and Switzerland will have reduced controls. “We will not carry out systematic checks as before, but rather random checks”, Seehofer said, and added:
“The clear objective is that we want free travel in Europe again as of mid-June. That presupposes that the infection situation will continue to be as favorable as we are experiencing these days”.
The plans are subject to change if the pandemic changes course. Germany closed its borders on March 16.
The borders with Belgium and the Netherlands are effectively already open right now, due to state government rules. Germany is also in discussions with Poland and the Czech Republic about whether to relax border controls, but there is still no decision.
Under the current rules, all people arriving in Germany must go into a 14-day quarantine, but the government is recommending that German states abolish existing quarantine regulations for internal EU travel. Arrivals from the external borders will still have to quarantine, but that may change after June 15.
