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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

Slovenian army to help ‘manage’ refugee flow

Slovenian soldiers will help police manage a surge of migrants and refugees from Croatia, the country's government said on Tuesday after an all-night emergency meeting. More than 4,280 people entered Austria from Slovenia on Monday.

Slovenian army to help 'manage' refugee flow
Refugees arriving in Styria. Photo: ORF

“The inflow of migrants over the last three days has exceeded all manageable possibilities,” a statement from the Slovenian government said, adding that parliament would be asked to approve legislation allowing soldiers to help in the crisis “under very specific circumstances”.

Under current law, the army can only provide technical and logistical support.

However, “this does not mean a state of emergency,” Prime Minister Miro Cerar told journalists.

State radio said parliament would debate the emergency legislation on Tuesday and that it could enter into force within days.

More than 8,000 people streamed into the tiny EU member state from Croatia on Monday, with Ljubljana warning this largely exceeded its daily quota.

The nation of two million people has become a new key transit point on the migrant trail, after Hungary sealed its Croatian border with a razor-wire fence to migrants on Saturday just weeks after it had already shut its Serbian frontier.

Tens of thousands — many fleeing violence in Syria, Africa and Afghanistan — have been making their way from Turkey to the Balkans in recent months, hoping to reach Germany, Sweden and other EU states.

Slovenia criticised Zagreb for lifting border restrictions at Croatia's frontier with Serbia on Monday night, allowing the migrants who had been stranded in wet and muddy conditions for hours to trek to Slovenia.

Ljubljana called for greater European solidarity, warning it was “delusional” to expect small individual countries to handle the spiralling humanitarian crisis alone.

“Slovenia calls on the European Union states and institutions to engage actively in dealing with this disproportionate weight for our state… European solidarity is being challenged.” the government statement said.

“It is delusional to expect a country of two million to (accomplish) what much larger countries haven't been able to.”

Ljubljana has also accused neighbouring Austria of capping its intake of migrants and only allowing in 2,000 per day, a claim Vienna rejected. “There are no restrictions in place,” interior ministry spokesman Karl-Heinz Grundböck told AFP on Monday.

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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