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Austria ‘fully supports’ Britain’s Rwanda asylum policy, Chancellor says

Austria's Chancellor Karl Nehammer praised the UK's controversial plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as PM Rishi Sunak makes his official visit to Vienna.

Published: 21 May 2024 13:55 CEST
Austria 'fully supports' Britain's Rwanda asylum policy, Chancellor says
Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer (R) welcomes Britain's Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he arrives for talks during an official visit to Austria, in Vienna, on May 21, 2024. (Photo by Jordan Pettitt / POOL / AFP)

Conservative Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer said during a joint press statement with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that Austria “fully supports the British path”.

Under the controversial scheme set up by non-EU Britain, irregular arrivals will be denied the right to request asylum in the UK and sent instead to Rwanda.

Nehammer spoke of the UK being a “pioneer” for the European Union with its “Rwanda model”, broadcaster ORF reported. Austria and the UK are “strategic partners when it comes to ensuring that asylum procedures take place in safe third countries”, said the Chancellor. 

He added that the British model is a way to tackle organised crime and end the “dying in the Mediterranean”. However, there is still a long way to go within the EU, according to the Chancellor. 

During the brief press conference, Sunak underscored the shared commitment to addressing illegal migration, calling it ‘one of the defining issues of our time’.

Joint letter by EU leaders

PM Sunak, during his visit to Vienna, commended a joint letter by Austria and 14 other EU countries. The letter aims to propose ‘new ideas’ for handling undocumented migrants, including the possibility of sending some to third countries.

The letter to the European Commission comes ahead of June’s European Union elections in which far-right anti-immigration parties are forecast to make gains and as the bloc juggles how to implement a recently adopted overhaul of its asylum rules.

READ ALSO: Austria joins countries calling for asylum centres outside EU

Sunak expressed his enthusiasm about the proactive stance of the 15 countries, stating his intention to continue building alliances in the fight against irregular migration.

“We have to pursue new ideas, new solutions and deterrents, removals to safe third countries like the UK’s pioneering Rwanda scheme,” Sunak said.

The 15 countries said in their letter that they wanted the EU to toughen its asylum and migration pact.

They said it should be easier to send asylum seekers to third countries while their requests for protection are assessed.

Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland and Romania signed the letter, but not EU heavyweights France, Germany and Spain.

According to the bloc’s asylum agency, asylum applications in the EU surged to over one million last year, a seven-year high. Syrians and Afghans were the top groups seeking protection.

READ ALSO: Border centres and ‘safe’ states: EU gives go-ahead to major asylum changes

While Germany received nearly one-third of asylum bids, Cyprus, Austria, and Greece had the highest proportion in relation to their populations.

Austria’s anti-immigrant, far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) leads in polls to Nehammer’s conservative People’s Party (OeVP).

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POLITICS

How Austria’s centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

Asylum, migration, and integration policies are a much-debated issue in Austria, particularly as the country heads to its national elections in the fall. What are the centre-left SPÖ plans?

Published: 24 June 2024 12:12 CEST
How Austria's centre-left SPÖ party plans to change integration policy

National elections in Austria will take place this fall, and one of the most debated issues – certainly one that has been driving voters for the past few years – is the refugee and asylum policy debates. 

While the far-right party FPÖ has gained popularity with extremist views such as closing off Austria entirely for asylum seekers, the centre-right ÖVP has also presented tougher stances. The chancellor’s party has publicly defended the creation of “asylum centres” for processing outside of the EU borders. Chancellor Karl Nehammer has also fully supported the UK’s plan to deport asylum seekers to “safe third countries”. 

A tougher stance on refugee policies has proved popular in Austria, and the centre-left SPÖ party has also seemed to lean toward stricter ideas more recently. However, since the party got a new leadership, a precise migration programme had not been presented yet. However, the issue was pressing, particularly following the party’s poor performance in the EU elections, when migration played a key role.

READ ALSO: How a change in the profile of asylum seekers is impacting Austria

So what are the party’s plans?

The SPÖ presented a new” masterplan” for asylum, migration, and integration. According to the SPÖ, the “Doskozil-Kaiser paper,” which has existed since 2018, has been “sharpened,” resulting in an “offensive paper” with approaches for action, said SPÖ leader Andreas Babler.

The aim was to “ensure balance and order” under “the premise of humanity”, said Babler at a press conference in Vienna.

The plan’s main points include faster procedures at the EU’s external borders, a fair distribution of refugees within the EU, and sanctions against countries that refuse to do so. With this, the SPÖ wants to reach a 75 percent reduction in the number of asylum applications. 

For example, the party leaders mentioned Hungary, where there were only 45 applications in 2023, compared to almost 60,000 in Austria. They said Hungary had to be persuaded to cooperate by exhausting all legal and political means.

The SPÖ proposes procedure centres along the EU’s external borders so that procedures can be completed more quickly and people do not hand themselves over to smugglers. The EU should set up “common centres for asylum applications”, for example, in embassies. 

People should only be distributed within the EU once the asylum applications have been assessed favourably. As a first step, cooperation between individual states could occur without the consent of all EU member states.

READ ALSO: When do Austrians think an immigrant is successfully integrated?

‘Integration year’ and deportation

The SPÖ plan contains an “extended mandatory integration year” that would ensure refugees get “German and values courses.” However, severe penalties, including deportation, would be imposed for serious offences or “repeated minor crimes.” 

Instead of mass accommodation, the SPÖ proposes small centres enabling better contact with the population. Women’s rights should also become a “central guiding principle for integration”. Women’s self-determination is the top priority, said SPÖ women’s spokesperson Eva-Maria Holzleitner.

The party reiterated that asylum is fundamentally a human right that should never be questioned. However, those who are denied their asylum request would be deported to their country of origin or safe third countries, the party advocates. 

READ ALSO: Who needs to take Austria’s integration exam?

Criticism from the right

Over the weekend, party representatives from far-right FPÖ and centre-right ÖVP have come out to criticise the SPÖ proposals. 

An FPÖ spokesperson said the plan is “pure PR policy” and that, in truth, the SPÖ had “always opened the door to illegal mass immigration under the guise of asylum”. The ÖVP said the proposals are just “headlines instead of concrete proposals for solutions”. 

In a press release, the party said that no capacity limit was presented, showing “that the SPÖ has still not realised that illegal migration cannot be countered by further squeezing the Austrian taxpayer”

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