Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants to see a fence similar to that between the USA and Mexico on the EU’s eastern border. At least the German “Bild” newspaper (Saturday edition) quotes him accordingly: “We need effective barriers,” the Chancellor demands. “They have to be very high, they have to go very deep into the ground and they have to be consistently monitored – technically and in terms of personnel.” Only with this “triad” can illegal migration be contained.
“The chief of our federal police is currently right there,” adds Nehammer in the “image”. “He looks at the US-Mexico border to see what measures are working. Our aim is to then share this knowledge with other EU countries such as Bulgaria in order to improve our EU border protection.” Robust protection of the EU’s external border is “a necessary must for the free Schengen area and counter-terrorism in of the EU”.
Against immigration to “the best social systems”
With regard to the upcoming summit, Nehammer said that the development of migration was “definitely dramatic. And there are still an incredible number of migrants waiting on the routes. In Iran alone there are three million Afghans who want to go to Europe. Added to this is the situation in the earthquake area in Turkey and northern Syria, where more than a million refugees from Syria live and have now lost everything again.”
Asylum procedures, according to the Chancellor, will continue to exist. “The EU stands for respect for human rights. But it must finally be prevented that several safe countries are crossed in order to then apply for asylum in the countries with the best social systems.
Criticism of the SPÖ and the FPÖ
The SPÖ, meanwhile, criticized Nehammer’s statements as “symbolic politics”. “Solution-oriented politics has been completely canceled in the ÖVP,” said SPÖ security spokesman Reinhold Einwallner in a broadcast. “The ÖVP is not about solutions, but only about buzzwords and headlines.” A new European asylum system is needed. “In the EU, concrete solutions have been on the table for years, which are not being implemented, among other things, because of the blocking attitude of the ÖVP. If Nehammer takes Trump as a role model, everything is said.”
The FPÖ called for stricter measures at Austrian borders. Nehammer should end the “deportation of responsibility to the EU” and follow Hungary’s example, explained FPÖ federal party chairman Herbert Kickl in a broadcast. It needs “a ‘Fortress Austria’ and an asylum stop”.
