Polish Border Checks Start as Migration Piles Pressure on Tusk

Polish police officers stand at the German-Polish border crossing between Brandenburg, Germany and Slubice, Poland on July 5.

Photographer: Patrick Pleul/picture alliance/Getty Images

Checks by Poland at its borders with Germany and Lithuania started on Monday in a retaliatory move by Prime Minister Donald Tusk against recent actions by Berlin aimed at curbing irregular migration.

Tusk said last week that the controls were a response to tighter border checks introduced by the new German government, which he said had created an “asymmetry” in how the two nations police their shared frontier.