06/28/2023 21:30 (act. 06/28/2023 21:30)
Interior Minister discusses migration with counterparts ©APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH
Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) will meet his counterparts from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia in Bratislava on Thursday to exchange information on the topics of flight and migration. In addition to the “national measures we have taken, we must also act at European level”, anticipated the Ministry of the Interior on the APA. Austria’s cooperation with Slovakia and Hungary is particularly close.
Hungary and Poland were the only countries to vote against the EU’s asylum deal in early June, which stipulates, among other things, that EU countries that do not want to take in refugees must pay a fine of 20,000 euros for each migrant. rejected in a fund managed by Brussels. Poland and Hungary categorically reject this. There are also plans to deport people whose asylum applications have been rejected to so-called safe third countries, such as Tunisia or Albania, and not just to their country of origin. According to the Ministry of the Interior, this point will also be discussed at the meeting between Austria and the states of Visegrád.
The informal Visegrád Group was founded in 1991 by Poland, Hungary and what was then Czechoslovakia with the aim of joining the EU and NATO. After the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, divisions within the group deepened. Hungary antagonized the other three Visegrád states with its pro-Russian course.