Germany’s plans to bring back border controls to reduce illegal immigration feel like a “panic reaction”, said Joris Bengevoord, mayor of border town Winterswijk and chairman of the Euregio group, an alliance of 24 Dutch and 104 border towns and villages, on Tuesday.

Extra border controls during the summer’s European football championships led to delays of up to 30 minutes to cross the border and “it is a real shame they are being brought back again”, he told NOS radio.

“If you cross the border once a year, then you can deal with it,” he said. “But if you cross the border four or five times a day for work or to get to the shops, then it will be extremely irritating for the people who live here.”

The transport sector has already expressed its concerns about the plan, although companies which do ship to Germany are less pessimistic, NOS said.

Germany has not yet gone into details about what form the border checks will take, but the plan is to introduce them from Monday for six months.

The Netherlands shares a 570 kilometre border with Germany on land and at sea, and thousands of people live in one country and work or study in the other.

In the Netherlands too, the far right PVV has called for the reintroduction of more border controls.

The Schengen open border area allows for free travel between member countries, but states can introduce border checks as a last resort if they feel there is a threat to public policy or internal security.

A number of EU countries already have some form of border controls in place, including Germany, Austria, Italy and France.