German Chancellor Olaf Scholz comes to Austria for a bilateral visit. Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) announced this on Wednesday after the Council of Ministers.
According to the Federal Chancellery, there is still no exact date for the visit. The themes should therefore be cooperation between neighbors and Schengen expansion. Berlin and Vienna have different opinions about this.
Berlin is pushing for Romania and Bulgaria to join Schengen
At a meeting with his Romanian counterpart, Ion-Marcel Ciolacu, in Berlin on Tuesday, the German Social Democrat head of government said, with a view to Austria, that Germany is “constantly” discussing Romania’s pending accession and from Bulgaria to the Schengen area with “our skeptical friends”. . Berlin is pushing for both EU countries to join Schengen this year.
First visit to Vienna since taking office
Nehammer once again referred to German controls on the Austrian border. Cooperation with Germany is on the agenda because it is the economically strongest nation within the EU, “at the same time, the Federal Republic controls the borders with Austria because the Federal Republic believes that there is a problem of irregular migration,” he said. the Chancellor. He was “ready to continue working on solutions for Schengen and then, together with the Federal Republic, to end border controls on the German-Austrian border,” Nehammer said.
As far as migration is concerned, a lot is currently happening in the EU, the chancellor said. Now you have to assess what the effect of these measures is and how the protection of the EU’s external border actually works “and then you can further discuss the issue of Schengen membership”.
The German head of government, in office since December 2021, has yet to make a bilateral visit to Vienna. Nehammer visited his counterpart in Berlin at the end of March 2022.