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,” said Kurz, referring to the “particularly difficult integration” of Afghan asylum seekers.
Instead, the threatened people in Afghanistan should be helped in neighboring countries, said the Chancellor. 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”.
- Video: ÖVP refuses to accept Afghans
The Swedish EU interior commissioner Ylva Johansson said in an interview with the German newspaper “Welt am Sonntag”: One must support the Afghans within the country and in the neighboring countries of the region. At the same time, she called on all EU countries to take in more refugees from Afghanistan through the resettlement program of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The EU Commission is ready to coordinate such programs and provide additional financial aid, confirmed EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Austria’s Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (VP) therefore attacked the European Commission again yesterday because, according to Nehammer, it is “constantly sending the wrong messages”.
Not to be compared with 2015
Meanwhile, the Austrian migration expert Gerald Knaus warned on ORF radio against comparing the current situation with that of 2015, the year of the great refugee movement. In 2015, millions of people were able to flee from Syria across the open border to Turkey, where most of them stayed, said Knaus. A part only made their way to Europe via the Aegean Sea. “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 leaving,” said Knaus.
