Austria has plans to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees to flow into the country since Saturday, Punch reports.
In an announcement on Sunday, Austria’s Chancellor Werner Faymann said his country would move gradually “towards normality”.
“We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation,” Faymann said, according to the Reuters news agency. Thousands of refugees fleeing war-torn nations have arrived in Austria and Germany since Saturday, after being stuck in Hungary for days. Vienna had suspended its random border checks after photographs appeared online of a Syrian toddler lying dead on a Turkish beach. The images sparked global outcry and calls within Europe for governments to do more to help those trying to reach the European Union. Vienna had agreed with Germany to waive rules requiring refugees to register an asylum claim in the first EU country they reach. Faymann said that decision was being revised following “intensive talks” with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is bitterly opposed to the waiver. Orban, who has portrayed the crisis as a defence of Europe’s prosperity, identity and “Christian values” against a tide of mainly Muslim refugees, said Germany was encouraging the influx.
As long as Austria and Germany don’t say clearly that they won’t take in any more migrants, several million new immigrants will come to Europe,” he told the Austrian broadcaster ORF.