Overview
- The Aachener Stadtrat voted Wednesday in a broad multi-party resolution that calls for stationary border controls at the Netherlands and Belgium borders to lapse by the end of September and to be stopped as quickly as possible.
- The resolution says the controls place special strain on Aachen’s roughly 260,000 residents by disrupting daily commuters and visitors and weakening the local cross-border economy.
- Germany has run systematic land-border checks since 16 September 2024 and the federal interior ministry has extended them repeatedly, most recently until at least mid-September 2026.
- A Bundesinnenministerium spokesperson told the federal press briefings there is no fixed timetable for ending the measures and that any further extension will be decided at short notice.
- Reporters and local officials say some crossings, especially toward the Netherlands, are checked almost continuously and regularly produce multi-kilometre queues on the Dutch side, a fact the city cited to invoke the Schengen code and press for federal action.