Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (VP) has called for a stricter deportation of irregular migrants from the EU and has again spoken out against accepting Afghan refugees. At the European Police Congress in Berlin, Nehammer said on Tuesday that Austria would have to take in up to 30,000 irregular migrants this year, “without any alternative, because they entered the EU’s external border, were not stopped by anyone in front of them and then ended up in Austria”.
Nehammer rejected the accusation that Austria was not adhering to the European Convention on Human Rights when he announced that Afghans would not be accepted by resettlement, “because this year alone we have already processed over 2,500 asylum applications with Afghans and 5,000 are open in total System”. Of the 44,000 Afghans whom Austria has granted protection so far, all came to Austria irregularly. Nehammer again rejected calls for Afghan refugees to be accepted, as announced by Berlin’s Senator for the Interior, Andreas Geisel (SPD).
Criticism of the EU Commission
The Interior Minister called for a “fact-based discussion” within the EU. Luxembourg, for example, is nowhere near as burdened by refugees as it positions itself. The EU needs three major strands of action – rapid asylum procedures at the EU’s external border, rapid returns and credible external border protection, said Nehammer, who in this context once again criticized the EU Commission, which still had “room for improvement” . For example, EU Interior Commissioner Ylva Johansson initially offered Lithuania money for reception centers after the recent migration flows from Belarus. The Lithuanian interior minister had assured him that she actually needed money for a border fence.
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which is not part of the EU but rather the Council of Europe, also prohibits Austria from returning migrants to Hungary and Greece, although other EU states are returning to Austria, said Nehammer. “Here, too, I missed the fact that the EU Commission had called me to offer some help.”
Nehammer described the Danish Migration Minister Mattias Tesfaye as his “new strong ally”. The former communist and current social democrat is “one of the toughest”. It is important to Tesfaye that the social welfare state lasts. He also sees it as his responsibility for Austria not to overload society, said Nehammer.
Society shouldn’t fall apart
Nehammer described the corona pandemic as a completely new challenge for police work. The interior minister expects the tension between vaccinated and unvaccinated people to continue to rise. He called for people to work together to “ensure that our society does not fall apart”. In Austria there is not only the danger of Islamist terrorism, but “meanwhile we also have the danger of right-wing extremist terror in Austria,” said Nehammer. This would be shown by the recent finds of weapons, ammunition and explosives.
Criticism came from the ranks of the opposition. “The VP’s national path in terms of asylum policy is doomed to failure. This is shown by the fact that only a third of the 500,000 deportation decisions in the EU are actually returned,” said SP security spokesman Reinhold Einwallner, according to the broadcast. The FP evaluated Nehammer’s statements as a “comprehensive admission of its own perplexity in migration policy”. Nehammer is calling for “deportations, for which he himself is responsible as Interior Minister, and openly admits that he has no plan on how to effectively fight the current wave of migration,” said FP security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer.
