Austria ready to fence off Slovenia
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AUSTRIA said yesterday it will build a fence along its border with fellow European Union state Slovenia to “control” the migrant influx, in what would be the first barrier between two members of the passport-free Schengen zone.
The two countries have become key transit points for tens of thousands of refugees and migrants seeking to reach northern Europe ahead of the winter, and before more potential EU border closures.
Vienna’s announcement prompted sharp criticism from Berlin amid an escalating spat over Austria’s handling of the humanitarian drama.
“We do not believe that the current migrant crisis that Europe is facing can be resolved with the building of fences or walls,” said German government spokesman Steffen Seibert, adding that the problem could only be dealt with if countries stood united.
Slovenia, which has been swamped by migrants recently, also reiterated its readiness to erect a fence along its Croatian frontier if new EU plans aimed at improving the situation failed to produce quick results.
Austria’s move is bound to intensify concerns about the EU’s cherished Schengen system, a crucial part of European integration efforts, which allows for the free movement of people and goods.
However, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said the planned barrier was “not about shutting down the border.”
“This is about ensuring an orderly, controlled entry into our country,” she told Austrian media yesterday.
Big rifts have opened up between EU members over how to handle Europe’s worst refugee crisis since World War II.
More than 700,000 migrants and refugees have already landed on the continent’s southern shores so far this year, the majority from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.
The procession has overwhelmed nations along the migrant trail leading from Greece through the Balkans, already prompting Hungary — also an EU and Schengen member — to seal its southern borders with razor wire.
The EU said yesterday it had “not been notified” of Vienna’s decision to build a fence.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker was scheduled to meet Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann later yesterday to discuss the situation, said EU spokeswoman Natasha Bertaud.
The decision came just days after Juncker and other EU leaders at an emergency Balkans summit warned that “unilateral actions could trigger a chain reaction.”
Few details have been released so far about the planned barrier, which is set to run several kilometers either side of the Spielfeld border crossing, where thousands of migrants have arrived in recent weeks.
Mikl-Leitner said yesterday that the situation risked escalating as migrants grow “more impatient and aggressive” over being forced to wait.
She pointed the finger at Germany, saying border police there processed “too few migrants,” and criticized Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy.
“The fact is that the majority want to go to Germany, because they feel they have been invited,” Mikl-Leitner said.
Her German counterpart Thomas de Maiziere hit back, accusing Austrian border police of waving through migrants without properly informing local authorities.
“Austria’s behavior in the past few days has not been okay,” he said.
Further down the migrant trail, Slovenia has seen nearly 90,000 migrants pass through since mid-October, when Budapest sealed its frontier with Croatia. Buckling under the strain, the nation of 2 million people said it too will shut its border if the EU does not stick to a 17-point action plan announced at Sunday’s Balkans summit.
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