Germany's plan to control 'irregular migration' against EU law, says Tusk

The Polish government has accused Germany of acting unilaterally and unfairly over its "unacceptable" plans to introduce temporary controls into in the passport-free Schengen zone at all the country's nine land borders, in what Warsaw has said is a contravention of European law.

- Kate Connolly

Donald Tusk, the Polish prime minister, said Germany had introduced a "de facto suspension of the Schengen agreement on a large scale" after the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, announced Berlin's decision to confront what she called "irregular migration" by introducing spot controls along Germany's 2,300-mile frontier after a recent spate of suspected Islamist attacks.

Tusk called for "urgent consultations" with Germany's other neighbours. The new regulations are due to start next Monday and will be in place for an initial six months. The decision comes amid a heated political debate in Germany on migration after recent fatal attacks in which the suspects were asylum seekers whose claims had been turned down, and as Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), campaigning heavily against migration, this month became the first far-right political party since the Nazi era to win a state election in Germany.

Austria's interior minister, Gerhard Karner, also expressed his objection as the row threatened to grow among EU members yesterday, saying Vienna was not prepared to receive any migrants who were turned back at the border with Germany. "There's no room for manoeuvre over this," he said.