Fences are key in protecting the EU at its borders, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said in an interview on Sunday, citing the time when the fence at the border with Turkey and Greece allowed Greek border authorities to stop irregular migrants from entering.
Ahead of important regional elections in Lower Austria in February and the six-month Swedish EU Council presidency, Austria is putting a heavy emphasis on refugee policy, with Nehammer calling for “taboos to be broken” at 2022s last EU leaders’ summit last week.
“Fences have an obstructive function, and they have an effect,” Nehammer told Austria’s largest daily, Kronen Zeitung, on Sunday. “They can be used to channel illegal migration, control it more closely and thus prevent illegal crossings. But a fence also needs surveillance, officials and technical equipment,” he added.
Nehammer also highlighted the efficiency of the Turkish-Greek border fence, which has stopped irregular migrants from entering Greece, particularly after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in 2020 he would no longer block refugees and migrants from accessing the border.
“There was a serious incident where Austria supported Greece with a special forces’ unit. At that time, violent migrants coming from Turkey tried to tear down the fence to cross the border,” Nehammer recalled, noting that border police were efficient in pushing back migrants with tear gas, partly due to the fence.
Fences are necessary to “support countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia and Hungary, which are all affected by high migration pressure, at the borders,” he insisted.
Talking about refugee allocation quotas across Europe, the Austrian leader said it would only be possible once a “functional protection of external borders is established.”
Austria, which has had some 100,000 non-Ukrainian refugees enter the country so far this year, will likely press for the issue to be addressed at the EU summit dedicated to it in February.
(Nikolaus J. Kurmayer | EURACTIV.de)
Source: euractiv.com
