A group of Dutch citizens were seen conducting their own border checks near the northern town of Ter Apel in the municipality of Westerworde Saturday (June 7), according to reports on the Dutch local broadcaster RTV Noord. 

The citizens involved had apparently been stopping vehicles and looking for potential asylum seekers entering the country. After the initial action on Saturday, locals tried to repeat the same checks on Sunday, which however was thwarted by authorities. 

These moves have drawn widespread condemnation from German government officials. Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt stressed that there was no legal basis for Dutch citizens engaging in such interventions, demanding that "that the [Dutch] authorities will end such measures." 

The head of Germany's Federal Police Union, Andreas Rosskopf, meanwhile said that Dutch authorities had shown too little of a response to the developments, saying he expected greater efforts going forward in order to avoid escalation. 

"It must be clear that citizens without legal authority have no right to intervene, to monitor, and ultimately to carry out the tasks of the security authorities, the police authorities," Rosskopf said, urging Dutch police to prevent people from taking such action in the first place. 

Germany's reaction was compounded by reports that one of the vehicles pulled over by the Dutch citizens actually turned out to be an unmarked German police vehicle, and that at the point the van was stopped, those involved in the action had actually entered German territory. 

German border police meanwhile have sent two police vehicles to the border to prevent any further trespassing.

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Slow police response

According to Dutch broadcaster RTL, however, there were no criminal offences reported by the time that police arrived at the scene in Ter Apel on Saturday.  

However, news footage from the scene does show civilians in reflective visibility jackets and with flashlights redirecting traffic to check for papers. 

It wasn't until the second set of such controls on Sunday evening that police intervened and took down the names of those involved in the citizens' controls.  

The regional de Gelderlander newspaper reported that the police could only tell the vigilante group that they were not allowed to stand on the part of the road reserved for vehicular traffic and that stopping traffic was reserved for authorities. 

On the existing evidence, however, no arrests could take place. 

According to media reports, the group consisted of 12 local men, who had organized their initiative on social media. 

They have pledged to return to the border to resume their illegal checks.

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Justice minister: 'Stick to the law'

These developments in the Netherlands came just days after the ruling coalition in the country fell apart over a dispute in migration policy. 

Far-right leader Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) exited the coalition after his three other coalition partners refused to sign off on a 10-point plan to reduce immigration. The measures included rejecting all new asylum seekers and closing refugee accommodation hostels. 

Wilders, whose party is gaining popularity in polls for snap elections called for October 29, also went on to praise the citizens' initiative, calling it a "fantastic" intervention and demanding that if the military didn't fortify and essentially seal off the Netherlands' borders, citizens should do so proactively. 

Wilders went as far as saying that he himself would partake in the next instance of such citizen action.

Against the backdrop of this political fallout, Dutch Justice Minister David van Weel said that is was understandable that people felt frustrated but emphasized that nevertheless, they must not take the law into their own hands. 

"Let the police and military police do their job," he said on social media platform X. 

"Stick to the law," he added.

Local authorities meanwhile also stressed that citizens should not take it upon themselves to act like traffic cops, endangering both their own lives and those of the drivers by interfering with traffic.

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Mixed views on German border policy 

However, there's also an additional sense of discontent in the Netherlands over the fact that Germany, meanwhile, has upped its border checks for the past month. 

As one of his first acts in office, Dobrindt introduced stricter border controls on all German borders, including the one with the Netherlands. 

The measures also include refusing entry to individuals asking for asylum at Germany's land borders – the government argues that the central European nation is only bordered by other safe countries and that therefore no one would need to cross into Germany to file an asylum claim. 

This practice, however, is already being contested in courts and is also facing criticism from the public, as in over a month of controls along Germany's borders, the expensive and extensive measures had only resulted in the sum total of 160 would-be asylum seekers being turned back. 

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz meanwhile said that one of the reasons for beefing up border checks was precisely to prevent citizens from trying to take the law into their own hands, adding that he saw no indication that anything similar to what had surfaced in the Netherlands over the weekend would happen on the German side of the border.

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with dpa, Reuters