The international community must now “do everything to improve the situation in the crisis-ridden country, but Austria must also admit that” not everything is in our power, “said Kurz in the Pulse 24 summer talk on Sunday.
Austria has already made a “disproportionately large contribution” in recent years and is home to one of the largest Afghan communities in Europe. He was therefore “not of the opinion that we should take in more people in Austria”. “That will not happen under my chancellorship,” emphasized Kurz, referring to the “particularly difficult integration” of Afghan asylum seekers in this country.
Neighboring states should help
Instead, people should be helped in neighboring states, he repeated the suggestion made by VP politicians over the past few days. Specifically, Kurz saw Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which had previously only accepted relatively few Afghans, to be responsible. The EU should support countries in the region and convince them to “give protection to people who seek protection”.

It is true that there is “absolutely no argument” that the radical Islamic Taliban, who had conquered Afghanistan at a rapid pace over the past few weeks, are “cruel” and that the living conditions in the country are “terrible”. But one has to realize that “we do not have everything in our hands, we cannot determine what happens in other countries,” said the Chancellor. Civil war-like conditions and recurring unrest are “a long history and tradition in this country”.
“Do not repeat mistakes from 2015”
“We must not repeat the mistakes of 2015”, Kurz was also quoted in a statement communicated by his broker. The VP chief was referring to the wave of refugees in the summer and autumn six years ago, when he had already been in office as Foreign Minister for almost two years. In this context, the Austrian migration expert Gerald Knaus warned in a radio interview on Saturday not to stir up fear of a possible wave of refugees from Afghanistan.
The current situation cannot be compared with that of 2015, he emphasized in the 1- “Mittagsjournal”. In 2015, millions of people could easily have escaped from Syria across the open border to Turkey, where most of them stayed, said Knaus. Only a part of it has just made its way to Europe via gis. “Today the situation is radically different,” said the head of the Berlin-based European Stability Initiative (ESI). “The people from Afghanistan – as we can see in the dramatic pictures from Kabul – are not coming out.”
“Adversaries must be the emissions”
In terms of climate change, Kurz emphasized the extreme relevance of this question. One will have to make a massive effort to achieve the climate targets, “that is anything but easy”. However, it is not necessarily relevant whether a road is being built or not. Good infrastructure is important. “I would say that neither the road nor the car are our opponents, but emissions must be our opponent,” said the Chancellor.
In the dispute between Environment and Transport Minister Leonore Gewessler (Greens) and the federal states of the eastern region over the new climate ticket, Kurz pleaded with his government colleague for dialogue. If you talk to those affected on site in peace, “then everything can be resolved”. It is about understanding that the different regions are different, also with regard to the provision of transport infrastructure. “I believe the 1-2-3 ticket can be an essential part of our government work,” he said.
