AUSTRIA TO SLASH THE NUMBER OF ASYLUM IT ACCEPTS, STRENGTHEN BORDER CHECKS.
Austria declared
on Wednesday it would cap the number of people allowed to claim asylum
this year at less than half last year's total, and its chancellor said
border controls would have to be stepped up "massively"- but how that
would be done was unclear.Germany
said on Wednesday Austria's decision was "not helpful" to German
efforts to negotiate a European Union-wide solution with the support of
Turkey, from which most migrants reach the European continent.
Hundreds
of thousands of people have streamed into Austria, a small Alpine
republic of 8.5 million since September, when it and Germany threw open
their borders to a wave of people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle
East, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
The
vast majority of arrivals simply crossed the country on their way to
Germany, but a fraction have stayed. Roughly 90,000 people, or more than
1 percent of Austria's population, applied for asylum last year.
Public
fears about immigration have fueled support for the far right, and
calls for a ceiling on the number of migrants by members of the
centre-right People's Party within the coalition government have grown.
"We
cannot take in all asylum seekers in Austria, or in Germany or in
Sweden," Werner Faymann, a Social Democrat who has resisted calls to cap
immigration, told a joint news conference, referring to the countries
that have taken in the most migrants.
The
government plan announced on Wednesday provides for the number of
asylum claims to be restricted to 1.5 percent of Austria's population,
spread over the next four years.
Breaking
down the four-year cap, the statement said the number of asylum claims
would be limited to 37,500 this year, falling annually to 25,000 in
2019.
Asked what would happen if
the number of people who wanted to apply for asylum exceeded that
figure, Faymann said only that experts were due to examine the issue.
"We
must also step up controls at our borders massively," Faymann told the
joint news conference with Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner and
other officials, without explaining what that would involve.
Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said one option would be to accept asylum requests without processing them.
"The
(other) option of not having to accept asylum requests at the Austrian
border is now being checked, and to send these people back, to deport
them back to our safe neighbor states," she told public broadcaster ORF.
Slovenian
police said later on Wednesday that Slovenia planned "the same action"
as Austria on its southern border with Croatia if Austria, which lies
north of Slovenia, took further steps to limit the inflow of migrants.
The
Dutch prime minister, whose government currently chairs EU ministerial
councils, said Austria's move illustrated the kind of national action
likely to multiply if the 28-nation EU did not start implementing a
commonly agreed strategy on asylum before a likely "spike" in arrivals
with spring weather.
Saying
the EU had six to eight weeks to end division and inaction on managing
immigration, Mark Rutte told reporters at the European Parliament in
Strasbourg that if that failed "we have to think about a plan B".
As
Germany has firmed up border controls in recent months, Austria has
often followed. Austria's interior minister said last week it would
start turning away people who were no longer being let into Germany,
prompting a knock-on effect further down the main route into Europe.
Faymann
said he had discussed his government's plans in principle with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and their Slovenian counterpart.
Faymann
referred to the measures as a second-best option while awaiting a
European solution involving securing the EU's external borders, setting
up centers there for people to apply for asylum, and spreading them
around the block.
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