“It won’t happen during my term,” Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz asserts, vehemently opposed to accepting groups of Afghan refugees.
„We must not repeat the mistakes of 2015.”
The position of the head of the Austrian government is supported by Karl Nahammer, Minister of the Interior, who, like Kurz, is a politician from the Christian Democratic Party OVP.
Such a hardline stance of Vienna in the debate over accepting the Afghans is not surprising. Austria has taken a similar position before, when it was asked to accept refugees from the Greek reception center Moria, which burned down last year and where asylum seekers were detained.
– Similar to FAZ. Austrians are “worried about a new wave of illegal and uncontrolled immigration.”
We must not repeat the mistakes of 2015
Dust confirms. The president of the German Christian Democratic Union, Armin Laschet, speaks in a similar vein today, FAZ writes and adds that “Germany and Austria differ in that, compared to Germany, Vienna does not consider itself equally directly responsible.”
Austria’s Weak Commitment To Afghanistan
Although Austria is not a member of NATO, it did take part in a military mission in Afghanistan. Until 2015, small units were sent, more recently – unmarried soldiers. But, as the Austrians assert, they did not hire the Afghans at once, so they do not have to evacuate anyone now.
Austria also denies allegations of non-compliance with its solidarity obligations. Chancellor Kurz asserts that large numbers of Afghans have been accepted into Austria in recent years. The Wiener Zeitung Presse reports that by 2020, Austria has accepted 40,096 refugees from Afghanistan registered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Currently, immigrants arrive in Austria + via the Balkan + route, which is again used extensively. This year, almost 8 thousand people came this way. One person, five of them are from Afghanistan
– FAZ writes and asserts that “Vienna is less concerned with the number of refugee quotas (…) than with people smuggling and illegal immigration.” In this regard, Nehammer also sharply criticized the European Commission for its “extremely short-sightedness and ideologically flawed policy”, which “constantly sends bad information”.
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