The Chancellor in Brussels demands that the Commission should finance physical barriers. There is to be a special summit of EU leaders on migration on February 9th.
Vienna/Brussels. Karl Nehammer no longer wants to be the bogeyman. Before the start of the one-day EU summit yesterday, Thursday, the chancellor tried to downplay the severe diplomatic upset of the past few days: Nehammer emphasized that he was in “close contact” with his counterparts in Romania and Bulgaria – the two countries whose accession to the Schengen area is Austria The Council of Ministers of the Interior had blocked the previous week with reference to the high number of asylum seekers – and to the astonishment of most other EU capitals. When it comes to the ongoing controversial issue of migration, the domestic government is not targeting the partner countries – it is the Commission itself.
One premise is that there are no financial subsidies to the Member States for walls, fences and barbed wire, only for “infrastructure” at the border. The official argument is that the money would otherwise be lacking elsewhere.
Brussels Action Plan
But Nehammer no longer wants to accept that. Specifically, he called for strengthening the fence along Bulgaria’s border with Turkey. The project will cost two billion euros – and will be financed with EU funds, according to the ÖVP boss. Fences are also needed elsewhere on the EU’s external borders. “We finally have to break this taboo.” In the light of these demands, the Green coalition partner expressed only cautious concerns yesterday – there was talk of “polemics” instead of a solution orientation. The ÖVP receives support from the head of the European People’s Party (EPP) Manfred Weber, who hit the same note as Nehammer in a “press” interview last week. “Without decisive measures such as border fences, it will not be possible to make it clear to the migrants that the state decides who is allowed to come and not the people smugglers,” says Weber.
The EU Commission sees it differently – and for its part refers to measures intended to curb the sharp increase in migration figures on the Western Balkan route. The Brussels action plan includes more effective border controls, the deployment of a total of 530 officers from the EU border protection agency Frontex in the Western Balkans and EU support for the repatriation of rejected asylum seekers. The visa policy of some Western Balkan countries – above all Serbia – also came under Brussels’ scrutiny. Tunisians and Indians, for example, were granted visa-free entry here until recently, making Belgrade Airport a hub for migrants with no chance of asylum in the EU, who then entered the Union via Hungary, Croatia or Romania – and often went into hiding there.
In intensive negotiations, accession candidate Serbia was finally made to promise to finally adapt its own visa regime to that of the EU – in order to further curb migration.
In any case, the other EU leaders are also aware of the importance of the current migration crisis. They want to discuss this at a special summit on February 9th.