The plan, announced by Faymann on Wednesday, was agreed at a meeting between the national government and representatives of Austria’s provinces, cities and other communities.
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“We can not accept any more asylum seekers”, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann told reporters.
In particular, some 500 newly deployed troops are to assist police on Austria’s southern border in conducting personal security and identity checks on every migrant arriving in the country.
“It is hard to assume that we will be able to control by legal means the entry and exit from the country, especially without cooperating with Macedonia; that the signed readmission agreement will be respected, which has not been the case until now”, says Rados Djurovic. The German government should prepare a “plan B” because the number of refugees that Germany can take in has been reached.
On Wednesday it said it would cap the number of people it allowed to claim asylum this year at less than half last year’s figure.
The vast majority crossed the country on their way to Germany. Faymann said that the cap, which accounts for 1.5 percent of Austria’s 8.5 million inhabitants, would serve as a “wake up call for the EU” in an “emergency situation” the bloc isn’t addressing properly.
Europe’s passport-free Schengen system developed another serious crack on Wednesday after Austria vowed a “considerable” step-up in border controls and a two-thirds cut in the number of asylum applications it will accept this year.
Human rights groups have expressed fears that the restrictions’ knock-on effect risked leaving migrants – including many children – stranded in icy temperatures on the western Balkans route.
He added it would not be unethical to limit the numbers accepted.
It takes them several hours or at most a day to then arrive to Serbia’s northwestern border with Croatia.
The sentiment was echoed by German President Joachim Gauck who said it was “morally and politically necessary” to limit Europe’s refugee influx, and avoid ceding ground to populists and extremists.
The small Alpine nation has become a key transit country for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entering the European Union (EU).
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been facing increasingly strong criticism even from within her own camp over her open-door policy.
