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IMMIGRATION

Kurz: Keep asylum seekers on islands

Asylum seekers to the European Union should be held on islands rather than be allowed direct access to the continent, Austria's foreign minister has said.

Kurz: Keep asylum seekers on islands
Sebastian Kurz. Photo: Bildagentur Zolles / Mike Ranz

Sebastian Kurz suggested in an interview with Die Presse newspaper published on Sunday that the bloc follow the “Australian example” to discourage migrants from setting out on the often perilous journey to Europe.

Under Australia's harsh and much-criticised immigration policy, asylum-seekers who try to reach Australia by boat are turned back or sent to Pacific camps in Nauru and Papua New Guinea where they are held indefinitely while their refugee applications are processed.

They are blocked from resettling in Australia even if found to be refugees.

“The Australian model of course cannot be completely replicated but its principles can be applied in Europe,” the minister said, adding that he was skeptical about the impact of a recent agreement with Turkey aimed at reducing the number of migrants traveling to the continent.

A similar model was used in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, with new arrivals being held on Ellis Island as they travelled to New York, he said.

Kurz added that the EU should adopt a resolution whereby those who try to enter Europe illegally lose their right to demand asylum.

Some 204,000 migrants and refugees have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe since January, the United Nations refugee agency said this week.

More than 2,500 people have died trying to make the journey this year — the vast majority of them on crossings between Libya and Italy — as Europe battles its worst migration crisis since World War II.

Many migrants saved from the sea are already directed to Greek islands or the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Austria, governed by a coalition of social-democrats and conservatives, welcomed some 90,000 asylum seekers last year, but since then Vienna has hardened its conditions of asylum and tried to close the migrant route from Greece to the north of Europe via the Balkans.

Last month a candidate from the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) narrowly lost the election for the largely ceremonial but coveted post of president.

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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