Integration minister Susanne Raab considers the European asylum system to be broken, with integration structures pushed to the limit by increasing numbers of applicants, which necessitates a common European system.
Austria has registered some 100,000 non-Ukrainian refugees in 2022. With housing overwhelmed, the government was forced to resort to providing tents to refugees.
The increasing number of asylum seekers is “a huge challenge for the integration structures, which are certainly at their limits”, Raab, a conservative, told APA in an interview.
“We finally need a common European asylum system with effective external border protection,” she stressed. Currently, Sweden holds the rotating EU presidency and has ruled out a “pact” on migration during its tenure.
“It is not acceptable that refugees can choose their destination countries and that currently, Austria is the main burden,” she stressed. The fact that Austria, along with a few other countries, has one of the highest numbers of asylum applications in Europe is “neither fair nor right.”
Her conclusions were met with derision from the far-right FPÖ. “One has to ask whether she is in the right place in her office,” explained the party’s security policy spokesman Hannes Amesbauer. The FPÖ insists that asylum seekers are not to be integrated but to return to their respective countries of origin.
Raab went on to justify Austria’s veto against Bulgaria and Romania joining the Schengen area, the EU’s near borderless inner circle as there was no point in expanding a broken system. Vienna was widely criticised by EU partners like Germany, as the Schengen veto was understood to be a move pandering to domestic politics.
Additionally, she stressed that “demand for skilled workers cannot be met by asylum integration.” This, she attributed to the low level of education and the “different set of values” of asylum applicants.
(Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
