German officials accuse Vienna of making the migrant crisis worse by shuttling busloads of refugees from the Slovenian border over to Germany – and dropping them there, often under the cover of darkness.
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Vice President Reinhold Mittellehner added at the press conference that the barrier is a response from the public, which he said are shocked by pictures of masses of people pouring through the border. “They are wrong to dump migrants on the border between the two countries under the cover of darkness without any warning, preparation or precaution”.
Austria, which has been a steady partner to Germany in filtering and moving asylum seekers from the Middle East and elsewhere along the route, announced that it would impose border controls by building a fence along its border with Slovenia.
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EUrope’s refugee crisis can only be solved “step by step” with European Union nations and Turkey working together, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Tuesday, dismissing the latest jab from a prominent domestic critic.
REUTERS A group of women sit on the ground as migrants wait to cross the border into Spielfeld in Austria from the village of Sentilj, Slovenia.
In London, delivering the annual Margaret Thatcher Lecture on Tuesday night, Abbott said “no country or continent can open its borders to all comers without fundamentally weakening itself. I expect this to occur immediately”, de Maiziere said. Germany has been sharply critical of how Austria has chosen to handle its refugee population.
For its part, Austria on Wednesday outlined plans to build barriers including a fence at a busy crossing on its southern border with Slovenia to slow the influx of transiting migrants.
“We need all possible technical measures to ensure a controlled, orderly entry onto our territory”, Mikl-Leitner stressed. A 7-year-old boy died off Lesbos, where most migrants land, while a 12-month-old girl was in critical condition in hospital from the same boat accident. We’ve had between 3,000 and 8,000 people crossing the border (a day).
More than 700,000 migrants – majority fleeing poverty and violence in Syria, Afghanistan, and Africa, have entered Europe so far this year.
Commenting on the incident, Mikl-Leitner, member of OeVP, said that authorities “know that in recent days and weeks individual groups of migrants have become more impatient, aggressive and emotional”.
“We can and will manage this integration” she said, although she conceded the country’s refugee policy was “far from ideal”.
Meanwhile, tensions are running high on both sides of the German-Austrian border.
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De Maiziere’s cabinet colleague, Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, speaking at a separate event, said the stream of migrants could not be “limitless”.
