This means that every refugee from Ukraine is entitled to support if they apply for asylum. Provision should be made for the accommodation of the people. “We have provided enough places in federal care facilities,” said a spokesman. Not in Traiskirchen – the asylum seekers are distributed to other offices in the country.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior is constantly in close coordination with the federal states and the aid organizations that are active in looking after refugees, both at the official and at the political level. Vorarlberg’s governor Markus Wallner, as chairman of the state governors’ conference, emphasized that if necessary, Ukrainian war refugees would be taken in, as the federal government had promised since the beginning of the crisis. The other state leaders have joined, such as Vienna, Upper Austria and Styria.
Keyword Styria: In 2015/2016, a border management system was set up in Spielfeld along with a fence along the border: heatable tents and mobile containers were expanded into a village at the border crossing to Slovenia, which belongs to the municipality of Straß in Styria. The border management still exists, it could “be ramped up within a very short time,” assures the spokesman for the Styrian police department, Fritz Grundnig. It has not yet been activated because of the war in Ukraine – which is not to be expected either, because Ukrainians can legally stay in the country for up to 90 days with a visa.
The activities of politicians and aid organizations are currently focused on on-site assistance and in Ukraine’s direct EU neighbors. Caritas has put together a 300,000 euro emergency package to deal with the precarious situation in Ukraine – see the article below on the left for further aid measures from Austria. In Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, as in Romania and the Republic of Moldova, preparations are being made for war refugees.