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IMMIGRATION

Proposed cap could be reached ‘by Summer’

Austria's interior minister said Sunday that a new national cap on the number of asylum seekers it takes in this year could be reached by the summer, as Europe grapples with its worst migrant crisis since World War II.

Proposed cap could be reached 'by Summer'
A rubber boat full of refugees arriving on the Greek island of Lesbos from Turkey on December 24th. Photo: APA

The migrant hotspot said Wednesday it would seek to cap the number of asylum seekers at 37,500 in 2016, compared to the 90,000 claims it received last year, which Austria's foreign minister said should serve as a “wake-up call” to push Europe to find a common solution to resolve its migrant crisis.

“According to forecasts, this (the new cap) should be reached before the summer,” Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Meitner told German newspaper Die Welt. 

She said Austria was considering whether to continue accepting applications after the cap is met, or to stop people entering at its border.

“We must address the root of the problem,” she said. “What we are actually seeing has nothing to do with the search for safety but is to do with the search for the most economically attractive country. It cannot continue like this.”

Vienna has argued that as long as countries like Austria and Germany are willing to keep a door open to refugees, other EU nations will have no incentive to budget.

Austria is itself a key transit country for hundreds of thousands of migrants and refugees entering the EU, with many headed for Germany which took in 1.1 million asylum seekers in 2015.

The country's foreign minister told Bild newspaper in the wake of the announcement that it was “above all a wake-up call to Brussels”.

“I believe that in the long-term there is a European solution. But as long as that is not there, we have to protect ourselves,” Sebastian Kurz 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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