As of next year, the Dutch authorities are going to place so-called smart cameras at 15 border crossings with Germany and Belgium. The cameras record the front of vehicles, including the license plate numbers. Border police are tipped off if for example a lorry is regularly being used to smuggle illegal aliens or if a car has been registered as stolen. The goal is to fight crime, but Germans in the border region are in two minds about the cameras.

The cameras register each and every vehicle that crosses the border, and Germany thinks this amounts to re-introducing the pre-Schengen border checks. 

The German media are describing the measure as anti-European right-wing populism. But the Netherlands has been experimenting with these smart cameras since 2004. The Dutch say the cameras do the same thing as the border police have always done: checking vehicles on the basis of insight, knowledge and experience. At the request of the Germans, the European Commission has asked the Netherlands for an explanation.