Austria’s interior minister on Thursday reiterated the need for a few kind of “barrier” at its Slovenian border to control the record migrant influx, but eased off her call for an actual fence.
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Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said the proposed fence was “not about shutting down the border”.
On 29 October, one day after her public proposal for the building of a fence at the Slovenian-Austrian borders, Mikl-Leitner told the APA news agency that she now backs the installation of a “security construction” which would allow a “controlled entry” into Austria.
“If Austria receives 11,000 people in Spielfeld on a daily basis, Bavaria can not say that it will process only up to 50 people an hour at its border”.
At the Sunday summit, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said he was “just an observer” at the meeting, saying his country had solved the problem of economic migrants flooding his country and offered to give advice to other countries on how to build fences of their own.
The German government has accused Austria of driving refugees to the border between the two countries after dark so they could cross into Germany and said it expected Vienna to return to an orderly processing of migrants immediately. However, Austria’s efforts to handle the influx of migrants have been complicated by recent moves by Germany – the desired destination country for many migrants – to slow the flow of migrants from Austria.
The eight Balkan leaders present were concerned that Ms. Merkel would tell them she couldn’t take any more migrants, leaving tens of thousands stranded in their countries, all wanting to go to Germany or Scandinavia.
Refugees from Syria and Iraq are blaming young men from Afghanistan and other countries for increasing tensions at the overcrowded border crossing between Slovenia and Austria.
“If the situation worsens and the Brussels action plan is not fulfilled, then Slovenia has several scenarios prepared, including the installation of a fence guarded by forces”, said Slovenian Foreign Minister Karl Erjavec earlier this week.
Almost 105,000 people have entered Slovenia in less than two weeks since Hungary sealed its border with Croatia.
The flow has overwhelmed nations along the migrant trail from Greece through the Balkans, already prompting Hungary – an European Union and Schengen member – to seal its southern borders with razor wire.
5,000 people crossed the border in Passau, Bavaria on Wednesday, German police said during the night.
“I come from a country with a past of walls and I don’t want to make a political career by building walls”, said Ms. Merkel, who grew up in East Germany.
“We do not have a picture of how many people may be missing yet”, a Greek coastguard spokeswoman said.
The Austrian authorities stated Wed.it should build barricades at its border with Slovenia to assist control a flood of refugees.
Witnesses cited by Greek officials said a few 150 people had been trying to reach Kalymnos’s shores from Turkey on that boat.
“Austria’s behavior in recent days was out of line”, he said.
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is struggling to maintain a balance between preserving freedom of travel and a rising backlash to the migrant crisis.
