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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

Refugee crisis to cost Austria €1 billion in 2016

The spiralling refugee crisis will cost Austria €1 billion ($740 million) in 2016, the finance ministry announced on Wednesday, as the country expects 85,000 new asylum-seekers by the end of this year.

Refugee crisis to cost Austria €1 billion in 2016
Refugees arriving at Westbahnhof station. Photo: Caritas

Average spending per asylum-seeker is set to rise to €10,724 next year, up from €9,593 in 2014, according to the latest available figures.

The total cost will represent 0.3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) compared to 0.1 percent this year, Finance Minister Hans Jörg Schelling said in his annual budget report to the European Commission.

Despite the extra burden, Austria's public deficit would nevertheless stay well below the European Union's prescribed ceiling of 3.0 percent of GDP, Schelling added.

The largest chunk — around €565 million — will go toward basic care measures like housing, food and health insurance, as well as work and integration programmes.

A further €345 million has been earmarked for individual Austrian states as they face unprecedented costs of handling the refugee influx.

Austria has seen more than 200,000 migrants enter the country since the beginning of September, most of whom travel onwards to Germany or Scandinavia.

But this year's surge in asylum requests has made the Alpine country of 8.5 million people one of the highest recipients of migrants in Europe on a per-capita basis.

The continent's biggest migration crisis since World War II has reignited a long-standing EU debate about the bloc's budget rules.

Last month, Schelling made a plea for the European Commission to apply a special clause in the EU's Stability and Growth Pact allowing the deficit ceiling of 3.0 percent of output to be exceeded in exceptional circumstances.

But Germany — which expects 800,000 refugees this year — rejected the calls, saying the refugee crisis should be kept separate from the debate over national budgets.

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.

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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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