Germany should seek to overhaul the EU s asylum system and strengthen border controls after the country takes over the bloc s rotating presidency on 1 July, German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said in an interview on Sunday. Human rights NGOs were quick to criticise the interior minister s proposal.

It should be verified whether migrants are entitled to seek asylum before they enter the EU, Horst Seehofer told the Funke media group in a recent interview, repeating a past call for policy change. If people arriving at the EU s external borders do not have the right to request asylum, then they must be „turned back”, the politician said. Mr Seehofer called for a „massive” expansion of Frontex, the EU s border protection agency, during Germany s six-month rotating EU presidency, which Berlin will take over on 1 July.

Pro-migrant rights group Pro Asyl has already voiced its strong disapproval. „We are opposed to mass actions at the borders,” Gunter Burkhardt, the Berlin-based organisation s managing director, said, arguing that migrants without legal representation at the EU s external frontiers are unable to appeal against legally inaccurate decisions.

Mr Seehofer also spoke of a need for Central European states that firmly refuse to take in illegal immigrants to accept a compromise solution. „If a country doesn t do its part in taking in refugees, then it needs to support the system in other ways,” he said, calling for „flexible solidarity”, public broadcaster ZDF quoted Germany s interior minister on its website.