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REFUGEE CRISIS

IMMIGRATION

Slovenia mulls border fence in refugee crisis

Slovenia says it is considering building a border fence to help stem a record influx of migrants and refugees, as thousands more people arrived from Croatia on Friday.

Slovenia mulls border fence in refugee crisis
Refugees in Spielfeld. Photo: APA

Prime Minister Miro Cerar said he hoped a mini-EU summit with Balkan and central European leaders on Sunday would help bring solutions to the crisis, but he has not ruled out a barrier along the 670 kilometre frontier with Croatia.

“We are considering that option too but at this moment… we are still looking for a European option,” Prime Minister Miro Cerar told state TV late Thursday.

Slovenia has become the main entry point into the European Union's passport-free Schengen zone after Hungary sealed its southern borders with razor-wire fences to stop migrants desperately trying to reach northern Europe before winter sets in.

Ljubljana has asked Brussels for €140 million, in addition to police backup and logistical support.

“If on Sunday we do not get sufficient (grounds for hope), if we see there is no will for collaboration, then all possibilities will are available, seeing as we will have been left alone,” Cerar said.

But he stressed that he saw the fence as a last resort. “The border with Croatia is long and building a fence would be rather demanding. Police and army would have to guard it permanently to prevent illegal crossings,” Cerar said.

More than 47,500 people have entered the small nation of two million people since October 17 when Budapest shut its frontier with Croatia, barely a month after also closing its Serbian border.

Most of the migrants, mainly fleeing violence in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, want to get to Germany, the EU's economic powerhouse.

Some 14,000 were waiting in Slovenian refugee camps and registration centres on Friday morning, hoping to continue to neighbouring Austria whose Spielfeld border camp was also bursting with new arrivals.

Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz warned on Friday that the “surge into Europe” had become too big, adding that bloc members had a responsibility to protect their borders.

Border fences in Hungary and other EU countries had proven effective in tackling the crisis, Kurz said. “The question is whether you want them or not,” he told public broadcaster Ö1.

His comments echo those of Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner who on Thursday announced it was time for the EU to “build fortress Europe”, after she had visited the Spielfeld checkpoint.

Some 7,000 refugees have crossed into Austria from Slovenia since Thursday, with some 4,500 still stranded at Spielfeld on Friday morning, police said.

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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