Austria fears migrant crisis

– Austria is prepared to take measures to protect its southern borders if an immigration deal within Germany’s coalition goes into effect, the government in Vienna said yesterday.

It was responding to an agreement late on Monday between German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats and Bavaria’s Christian Social Union settling a row over migrant policy that had threatened to topple her government.

Under the deal, migrants who have already applied for asylum in other European Union countries will be held in transit centres while Berlin negotiates bilateral accords for their return.

It is unclear what effect it will have as in many cases bilateral accords for migrants’ return already exist and are carried out.

Austria, which borders Bavaria, has repeatedly said it will at least match any German measures on its own frontiers further down migrant routes, such as those it shares with Italy and Slovenia. Tighter German border controls have raised fears of a migrant build-up in Austria.

The statement said the Austrian government is “prepared in particular to take measures for the protection of our southern borders” (with Slovenia and Italy).

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s conservatives won last year’s parliamentary election with a hard line on immigration. – Reuters

Vienna