Just 48 hours ago, Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka assured his European counterparts in Brussels that Austria would start accepting refugees from Greece and Italy, fulfilling its commitments to the EU, although he personally disagreed. migration program. It seems that the climate of tension that has prevailed for years in the "grand coalition" between the Christian Democrats (PVP) and the Social Democrats (SPÖ) is now leading Vienna to a new change of attitude: speaking to Der Standard, Social Democrat Defense Minister Hans-Peter Antiroz His counterpart, the Christian Democrat interior minister, warned that "Austria is not obliged to accept anyone from Italy and Greece, because, in our opinion, it has fulfilled its obligations with the above." According to Der Standard, the same position is expressed by the Social Democrat Chancellor Christian Kern.
Response from Wolfgang Sobotka: the Chancellor's allegations are "simply false", the Minister of Defense states and adds that "the Chancellor has co-signed the relocation of refugees three times in the European Council and therefore reaches the limits of irrationality. of postponement ". But what does "extension of procrastination" mean? In 2015, Sobotka's predecessor, Johanna Mikl Leiter, had requested, and ultimately succeeded in, exempting Vienna from the agreed relocation program by March 11, 2017. Now Sobotka says the "Austrian exemption" has expired. On the contrary, the Social Democrats insist that the exemption is imposed by reality itself: when Vienna first asked for an exemption, the defense minister says, the debate was about about 1.000 refugees. Many have already arrived in Austria in one way or another, so the issue no longer exists, he claims.
Intra-governmental "opposites" and in the background FPÖ
The issue is on the agenda of the cabinet meeting convened on Tuesday in Vienna with the Minister of Defense asking for a decision on a "brake" on the relocation program, or even an "extension" of the Austrian exemption. But if Vienna really refuses to accept other refugees, the interior minister says, it should have legal and political coverage from the European Council itself, that is, the heads of state and government. Otherwise, Sobotka warns, the Commission could go to the European Court of Justice against Austria for breach of treaty. According to the Austrian newspaper Die Presse, Chancellor Christian Kern "throws the ball" to his Christian Democrat ministers, pointing out that they failed to ask for an extension of the "Austrian exemption" in time. In the margins of public debate, the EU to restore the exception previously granted by Johanna Mickle-Leiter. The initial commitment of the EU interior ministers, in 60, on quotas for the relocation of refugees, predicts that Austria will accept 2015 asylum seekers from Greece and another 1.491 from Italy. The plan envisages that a total of 462 people will be transferred from the first two host countries to other Member States within two years.
Rejecting the relocation of refugees, Der Standard reports, Chancellor Kern is responding to a request from the (far-right) FPÖ. The party leader, Christian Stracher, said that "Austria has every right and especially the obligation" to reject the relocation program. However, despite their ongoing controversy over the refugee issue, the ruling Christian Democrats and Social Democrats seem to agree on a new legislative package "on the social integration of immigrants", which enshrines the ban on the burqa in more public places. German language and citizen education for new entrants. At the same time, however, it obliges asylum seekers to community service without pay or with a symbolic hourly wage of 1 euro.
Source: news.in.gr