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IMMIGRATION

Minister calls for fines for ‘integration failure’

Austria’s Foreign and Integration Minister Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) has called for migrant parents to be fined if they do not comply with school summons relating to their children - particularly in matters where children are being encouraged to integrate.

He told ORF radio that he would recommend fines of up to €1,000 and also said that he wanted school children to work on social projects at school.

Chancellor Werner Faymann (SPÖ) and Vice-Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner (ÖVP) have said there is currently no need for tougher criminal laws relating to integration refusal but Mitterlehner did support Kurz’s suggestion for a fine, citing the example of a father who repeatedly refused to attend a school’s parents’ day, as his child’s teacher was a woman.

Faymann said that he wanted to discuss the idea with parent, teacher and student organisations, to judge whether such penalties would be necessary.

Paul Kimberger, a leader of the teachers’ trade union, said that in his opinion parents who failed to participate in their children's integration should be forced to do so, and that fines would be one way to do this. However he stressed that teachers also reported problems with parents of children with no migration background.

He said that Austrian teachers need more support staff, such as school psychologists and social workers. He also recommended recruiting more teachers with a migration background, who would be able to speak the language of some of their pupils and communicate with their parents.

Greens MEP Alev Korun criticised Kurz for focussing constantly on the “foreigner problem” and said that he wanted to punish an entire population group.

The head of the liberal Neos party, Matthias Strolz, said that fines would simply shame the affected students in front of their classmates and lead to “anger, hatred and alienation”. He called for mandatory ethics and religious education in schools instead.  

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FAR-RIGHT

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Radical Austrian nationalist Martin Sellner has been banned from entering Germany, it emerged on Tuesday, days after he was deported from Switzerland.

Germany issues entry ban to Austrian far-right activist Sellner

Sellner, a leader of Austria’s white pride Identitarian Movement, posted a video of himself on X, formerly Twitter, reading out a letter he said was from the city of Potsdam.

A spokeswoman for the city authorities confirmed to AFP that an EU citizen had been served with a “ban on their freedom of movement in Germany”.

The person can no longer enter or stay in Germany “with immediate effect” and could be stopped by police or deported if they try to enter the country, the spokeswoman said, declining to name the individual for privacy reasons.

READ ALSO: Who is Austria’s far-right figurehead banned across Europe?

“We have to show that the state is not powerless and will use its legitimate means,” Mike Schubert, the mayor of Potsdam, said in a statement.

Sellner caused an uproar in Germany after allegedly discussing the Identitarian concept of “remigration” with members of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) at a meeting in Potsdam in November.

Reports of the meeting sparked a huge wave of protests against the AfD, with tens of thousands of Germans attending demonstrations across the country.

READ ALSO:

Swiss police said Sunday they had prevented a hundred-strong far-right gathering due to be addressed by Sellner, adding that he had been arrested and deported.

The Saturday meeting had been organised by the far-right Junge Tat group, known for its anti-immigration and anti-Islamic views.

The group is also a proponent of the far-right white nationalist Great Replacement conspiracy theory espoused by Sellner’s Identitarian Movement.

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