“During my tenure as prime minister, this will not happen”, Sebastian Kurz Recently talked about the possibility of admitting refugees from Afghanistan quota. Austrian Minister of the Interior Karl Nehammer (Karl Nehammer), like Kurz, is a politician of the Christian democracy ÖVP and has inherited the line of the head of government. The Green Party is a smaller partner in the Vienna “Turquoise Green” alliance. Their conflicts are audible but powerless. In the government plan, it is in fact agreed that ÖVP can implement its restrictive asylum and immigration policies, if necessary, with a majority of other people-which means it can cooperate with the right-wing FPÖ.
Vienna’s tough stance in the debate on the admission of Afghans is not surprising. Austria took a similar stance when asked to accept refugees from Moria, the original Greek reception center that was burned down last year. The reasons for this positioning are obvious: vice president It is for this purpose that voters under Kurz have become the most powerful force twice in a row. It temporarily prevented the decline of the old “black” ÖVP-and at the same time the rise of FPÖ, just a few years ago, it seemed to be becoming the most powerful force in Austria.
Vienna believes it has no direct responsibility
Some media now suspect that ÖVP is focusing on the state campaign in Upper Austria with its current rides, and even recently in an ORF interview with the boss of FPÖ Herbert KickerThat one was obviously overtaking on the right. This was rejected in the ranks of ÖVP. It is said that this timing is related to the country’s collapse in Afghanistan and people’s serious concerns about a new wave of illegal and uncontrolled immigration.
Thursday at 12 noon
“We cannot repeat the mistakes of 2015,” Kurtz also said, similar to the chairman of the CDU Armin Raschelt these days. One difference from Germany is that Vienna does not consider itself directly responsible in a similar way. Although it is not a member of NATO, Austria took its soldiers to participate in the Western military missions in Afghanistan. It took a small team until 2015 and only recently took individual soldiers. But it is said that the “own” local employees who should be brought out now have not been hired.
Vienna refused to accept allegations of evading the obligation of solidarity. Prime Minister Kurz recalled that Austria had accepted a large number of Afghans. The Viennese newspaper compiled the figures for 2020: According to this, Austria received 40,096 Afghan refugees registered by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Fear of being deported from Germany
This is more than the larger France or Italy, only in Germany. Currently, immigrants also come to Austria via the “Balkan Route”, which is once again used extensively. So far this year, there are about 8,000 people, and one-fifth of them are from Afghanistan. The government was even criticized by the “right-wing” of the Social Democratic Party for this. In fact, Kurz did not say anything about the absolute freezing of enrollment, as it is actually implemented in Hungary. He used words like “voluntary” or “in addition” to oppose accidental solutions.
Vienna does not care much about the sheer number of such refugees, which may be low for Austria, but it is a frightening signal for human smugglers and illegal immigrants.Correspondingly severely criticized Nehammer The European Commission “constantly sends out the wrong message” because of its “very short-sighted and ideologically misleading policy.” In Vienna, they also know that if there is a wave of immigration like in 2015, then due to European case law, Dublin will not be able to provide rules for Hungary or Greece-but it can from Germany to Austria.
