Patrols as before the Corona crisis
Bavaria and Austria want to go back to strict border protection
03/17/2023, 5:50 p.m
Bavaria and Austria want to resume the multinational border patrols from the pre-Corona period and thus deter traffickers, smugglers and illegal migrants. Munich and Vienna would also like a bulwark at the EU’s external borders.
In the fight against people smuggling and illegal migration, Bavaria and Austria rely on the deployment of trinational border patrols. “We will work together to ensure that the three national patrols of border officials that were usual before the big pandemic, for example from Italy, Austria and Germany or from Hungary, are set in motion again,” said Bavaria’s Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann after a meeting with the Austrian Minister of the Interior, Gerhard Karner. The topic must be discussed with the German federal police and the authorities in Italy and Hungary, said the CSU politician.
ÖVP politician Karner emphasized that cross-border cooperation, such as Austria is already practicing with Slovakia and Hungary, is important for functioning border protection. In this context, it is also important that there is robust protection of the EU’s external borders, in which the EU’s internal countries also participate. In this way, the high migration pressure can be reduced and an important signal can be sent to the gangs of people smugglers.
“Only if there are proper controls at the EU’s external borders and all people who arrive there and apply for asylum, for example, are then also registered immediately, will we have a reasonably orderly process,” said Herrmann. It cannot be the case that the asylum procedure in Germany establishes that two-thirds of the asylum seekers who came to Germany in the past year were not previously registered in another country. “If you look at the map, that can’t normally happen at all.”
Nehammer wants a border fence on the EU’s eastern border
In an interview with the “Bild” newspaper, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer also called for an effective border fence on Europe’s eastern border. “We need effective barriers: They have to be very high, they have to go very deep into the ground and they have to be consistently monitored – technically and in terms of personnel. Only with this triad can we curb illegal migration,” said the ÖVP politician to the newspaper and added: “Asylum procedures will continue to exist. The EU stands for respect for human rights. But it must finally be prevented that several safe countries are crossed in order to then apply for asylum in the countries with the best social systems.”
Interior Ministers Herrmann and Karner also agreed to work more closely together in the fight against cybercrime and extremists. Furthermore, existing legal loopholes, also in liability issues, should be quickly eliminated in the cross-border deployment of rescue services. The responsible Federal Ministry of Health has already confirmed that it wants to come to an agreement with Austria quickly, said Herrmann.