After Denmark and Sweden, there is also a movement against “irregular migration” in Austria
"We have to reduce irregular migration, we have to prevent it," announced SPÖ chairwoman Rendi-Wagner as a result of her party's annual retreat - in Carinthia, because there are state elections on March 5th. According to Rendi-Wagner, the EU asylum system does not work, Austria registered 100,000 asylum applications last year, Hungary 45. Austria needs alliances with other countries, e.g. a “Lake Constance coalition” with Germany and Switzerland, but also with the Netherlands, Spain or Denmark.
The above-mentioned alliances are supposed to reach agreements with countries of origin and transit in order to prevent "irregular migration from taking place as far as Europe," said Rendi-Wagner: Asylum applications should already take place outside the European borders: in Morocco, Tunisia and Turkey.
Carinthia's Governor Peter Kaiser (SPÖ) specifically advocates "controlled labor migration". If third countries such as Morocco or Tunisia take back illegal migrants, they should be given opportunities for legal labor migration to Austria: “But that would also mean that the corresponding infrastructures should be created in cooperation with these third countries on site in the states themselves”, so “the traffickers could actually be deprived of their human prey.
With this change of course, the SPÖ is making itself compatible with a new edition of the old classic Austrian coalitions of red-black and black-red. In the current black-green government, there is no bonus for the Greens, they are stagnating in public opinion. Chancellor Nehammer wants to break the "taboo fences" in the EU. In addition, he wants to bring about an EU-wide dialogue on stricter rules in the fields of rejection at the border, asylum procedures and returns. The joint "Operation Fox" has started on the Burgenland border.
Swedish Migration Minister Maria Malmer Stenergard had announced measures to reduce illegal migration and its adverse outcomes in late 2022 . Permanent residence permits for asylum seekers are to be withdrawn step by step. The new Danish government led by social democrat Mette Frederiksen is in favor of setting up asylum centers outside the EU in order to control immigration more effectively.
A new decree tightens the rules for civilian sea rescuers in Italy. Fines, confiscation of ships and arrest of NGOs are now possible for even minor violations. The main goal of the Meloni government is to prevent mass arrivals. In Italy, political developments go far beyond the issue of illegal immigration. Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Poland's Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki want a different EU: “Poles and Italians are fed up with the regulations of the European bureaucracy and want to renew the EU. With Meloni we want to renew the EU,” said Morawiecki on December 22nd. “The common points with Meloni's agenda are a Europe of homelands rather than a European superstate. Poles and Italians want real democracy. We want to renew the EU by going back to its founding principles.”
Austria is still a long way from being critical of the EU. In Austria, the FPÖ is breathing down the necks of the Reds and Blacks. In current polls, the Freedom Party is sometimes just over, sometimes just under 30 percent and thus ahead of the SPÖ and even more clearly ahead of the ÖVP.
Source: Tichys Einblick
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