BERLIN — Germany’s new Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt told reporters on Wednesday that he had instructed federal police to tighten border controls with the goal of turning back more irregular migrants, including those who intend to seek asylum.

“We will control the borders more strictly, [which] … will also lead to a higher number of rejections,” Dobrindt, a member of Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative bloc, said less than 24 hours after being sworn in, fulfilling one of his party’s main preelection promises. He added, however, that vulnerable people, including children and pregnant women, would not be rejected at the German border.

“It’s not a question of starting to reject everyone in full tomorrow, but of ensuring, bit by bit, that the excessive demands are reduced, that we reduce the numbers and that we send a clear signal to the world and to Europe that the policy in Germany has changed,” Dobrindt said.

While most legal experts argue that rejecting people who want to claim asylum violates EU law, Dobrindt argued there is a clear legal basis for the decision, and said he and Merz are “in talks” with Berlin’s neighbors about the new approach.

Officials from Poland and Austria criticized the new German government’s plan in comments to POLITICO last week. Poland’s chief diplomat in Berlin, Jan Tombiński, said the current controls were “already a problem for daily border traffic and the functioning of the EU internal market,” while the Austrian Interior Ministry cited a ruling of the European Court of Justice, which deemed informal returns illegal.

Merz — whose headline campaign promises also included pledges to improve relations with Germany’s neighbors and to take a more proactive position on the European stage — was in Warsaw when Dobrindt announced the new plan, where he’ll have to defend his government’s new border policy.

When asked about the Polish and Austrian criticism, Dobrindt said the stricter domestic rules would support a tightening of the European asylum system at large, which Germany would pursue with its neighbors.

“The more we can shift asylum applications to the external borders in the European system, the less internal border controls will be necessary,” he said.

“We want a Europe of open borders to be possible again. But the current situation is one of open dysfunctionality. It needs to be cleaned up, and then we can very quickly return to a reduction in border controls.”