Switzerland and Italy step up joint border controls

A joint control by Swiss-Italian police in Chiasso, canton Ticino, in 2019. Keystone / Elia Bianchi

Checks are being stepped up on the Swiss and Italian sides of the border to combat irregular immigration. Italian-Swiss patrols are now operating near Lake Maggiore, it was reported on Thursday.

Italian-Swiss border patrols will check car and rail traffic as part of the cross-border cooperation between the two neighbours to combat irregular immigration, the Federal Office for Customs and Border Security said in a statement.

Up to now, joint border patrols were active on the Italian side, east of Lake Maggiore, in the provinces of Varese and Como. From now on, the scope of these patrols will be extended to the Locarno region and the Verbano-Cusio-Ossola region in Italy on the western shore of Lake Maggiore.

The relaxation of pandemic-era restrictions has brought an increase in the numbers of migrants taking the Balkan route into Europe’s prosperous heartland.

The numbers of refugees and migrants coming to Western Europe via the Balkans have again “risen sharply”, including to Switzerland, Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter said on Tuesday.

While Switzerland is a transit country for many migrants, the numbers of asylum-seekers have nevertheless risen again. By the end of August, 12,362 asylum applications were registered, according to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SEM). The SEM has also corrected the expected asylum numbers from around 16,500 to 19,000 by the end of 2022.