Austria on Wednesday said it plans to build a fence at its main crossing with Slovenia, the first such barrier between two members of Europe’s document-free travel area, in one of the clearest signs to date of how Europe’s migrant crisis is undermining Europe’s institutions and sowing discord across the bloc.
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Austrian Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner insisted the proposed barrier was “not about shutting down the border”, but “about ensuring an orderly, controlled entry into our country”.
Slovenia on Wednesday also reiterated its readiness to erect a fence along its Croatian frontier if new European Union plans aimed at improving the situation fail to produce quick results.
Hungary’s foreign minister says the European Union needs to wrest back control of its borders, dismissing as “hypocritical” criticism of his country’s construction of a border fence to tame the flow of refugees. 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. Syrian citizens are mostly being accepted, but Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said numerous Afghans pouring into the country will likely be sent home. About 577,000 people seeking asylum arrived in Germany from January to the end of September this year, 164,000 of them in September alone, authorities say.
In separate comments to the state broadcaster ORF, she spoke of the need for a fence to maintain public order.
But perhaps the greater risk of more walls popping up is that it could create a “domino effect:” Following Austria, Slovenia announced plans to build its own fence.
Getty Images After Hungary sealed its border with Croatia, streams of refugees have diverted by way of the Balkans in to Slovenia in hopes of pressing onwards. “We has done resuscitation on one man, he died”, said Lette Demoor, doctor of Boat Refugee Foundation. “There is only Slovenian police”, said Rashed, also from Syria. Eight police from Austria have been deployed since October 13, while Slovenian authorities say officers from Hungary and Slovakia could arrive within days.
The human cost of the crisis rose again on Wednesday as at least 10 people, including seven children, died when four migrant boats sank off the Greek island of Lesbos.
Almost 105,000 refugees have entered Slovenia in the last two weeks.
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, on a visit to Athens, said Berlin was ready to stand by Greece as it coped on the front line of Europe’s biggest refugee crisis since World War II.
The worldwide Organization for Migration said in a statement that a few sources reported 200 people were onboard the boat, while others had said there were 300.
Germany is struggling to cope with the arrival of an expected 800,000 to 1 million migrants this year, many from war zones in the Middle East, and officials are openly worrying about a potential rise in right-wing radicalism amongst Germans.
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“Slowly word will spread among the refugees that individual states do not have a form of invitation policy but are at the limits of their capacity and are carrying out tougher controls and security measures”, Mitterlehner said.
