Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka has called on the European Union to strengthen its defenses against displaced people. He told a German newspaper that he wants stronger borders and more deportations.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/R. Hirschberger
Advertisement
In an interview with Germany's Die Welt newspaper published on Thursday, Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka called on the European Union to increase measures to prevent displaced people from reaching the bloc. Sobotka, of the right-wing Austrian People's Party, also called on EU members to speed up the deportations of people whose asylum applications have been rejected.
"The expansion of Frontex is a first step in the right direction, but more must follow it in order to be able to protect the EU's external borders," Sobotka told Die Welt, referring to the European Union's patrols of the Mediterranean Sea. "We have a paradoxical situation here in that people ineligible for asylum cannot be deported back to their countries of origin," he said.
Austria has previously come under fire for threatening to suspend Schengen commitments and reinstate checks on its border with Italy. Though German officials criticized the notion, just a year ago checks were reimposed on the frontier with Austria.
A full agenda
Sobotka gave the interview to Die Welt ahead of Thursday's EU interior ministers' meeting in Luxembourg. He told the German newspaper that people would not stop coming if the European Union continued to allow them to apply for asylum after "rescuing" them from boats on the Mediterranean Sea.
The ministers plan to discuss the European Union's detention and deportation deals with "third countries," or non-EU states that are also not refugees' nations of origin, including possible arrangements with governments in Africa. They could also discuss the European Union's plans to parcel people granted asylum among its member states. Countries that refuse to do so could be hit with financial penalties.
Also on the agenda will be Greece, a country left financially hobbled by its EU and international creditors and a main point of entry into the European Union for displaced people. Critics say Greece has too few "hot spots," where displaced people are registered and accommodated while decisions on their eligibility for asylum are made.
mkg/kl (AFP, KNA, dpa)
Refugees who changed the world
New US President Donald Trump has halted the entry of refugees to the country. Many former refugees in the past became world-famous musicians, actors, politicians or scientists.
Image: imago/Thomas Bielefeld
Albert Einstein
Famous for his theory of relativity, German Jewish Nobel Prize laureate Albert Einstein was visiting the US in 1933 when it became clear he could not return to Nazi Germany. He seems to have had mixed feelings about life in exile. He once wrote that he felt "privileged by fate" to be living in Princeton, but "almost ashamed to be living in such peace while all the rest struggle and suffer."
Image: Imago/United Archives International
Marlene Dietrich
German singer and actress Marlene Dietrich, she of the husky voice and bedroom eyes, was already a star living in the US, when she acquired American citizenship in 1939 and turned her back on Nazi Germany. A prominent refugee, she spoke out against Hitler and sang for US troops during the war - while her films were banned in Germany. But she said: "I was born a German and shall always remain one."
Image: picture-alliance/dpa
Henry Kissinger
He was a Harvard professor, an authority on international relations, the 56th US Secretary of State, and instrumental in shaping American foreign policy - but in 1938, Bavarian-born Henry Kissinger fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution. Nevertheless Germany, the nonagenarian said in a speech several years ago, "has never ceased being a part of my life."
Image: picture-alliance/AP Photo/M. Schiefelbein
Madeleine Albright
Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Madeleine Albright and her family fled to the US in 1948 when communists took over the government. She got involved in politics and went on to become the highest-ranking woman in the US government: the first female Secretary of State (1997-2001).
Image: Getty Images/AFP/S. Loeb
George Weidenfeld
Born in Vienna in 1919, Lord George Weidenfeld was a British Jewish publisher who immigrated to London in the aftermath of the Nazi annexation of Austria. He co-founded a publishing company, served as chief of staff to Israel's first president, and funded the rescue of Syrian and Iraqi Christians. "I can't save the world … but I had a debt to repay," he once said.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/N.Bachmann
Bela Bartok
The 20th century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist and folk music collector Bela Bartok was not a Jew, but he was opposed to the rise of Nazism and the persecution of the Jews. In 1940, he moved to the US. "My main idea, which dominates me entirely, is the brotherhood of man over and above all conflicts," Bartok is quoted as saying.
Image: Getty Images
Milos Forman
Milos Forman, already a leading art-house film director, turned his back on Czechoslovakia and moved to the US after the Prague Spring of 1968. He went on to make two internationally acclaimed Oscar-winning movies: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975) and the 1984 period drama film "Amadeus."
Image: picture-alliance/abaca/V. Dargent
Isabel Allende
Chilean President Salvador Allende was overthrown in a coup and died in 1973. His cousin's daughter Isabel (who called him uncle) fled to Venezuela after herself receiving death threats. She later settled in the US. Her novels are internationally-acclaimed classics of magical realism, including the "The House of the Spirits" and "Eva Luna."
Image: Koen van Weel/AFP/Getty Images
Miriam Makeba
Miriam Makeba - lovingly know as Mama Africa - was on tour in the US when the South African government cancelled the young woman's passport for campaigning against the Apartheid regime and later banned her from returning home. Her song "Pata Pata" was a worldwide hit in 1967. The legendary singer lived in the US and Guinea before she saw her native country again decades later.
Image: Getty Images
Sitting Bull
Sioux leader Tatanka Iyotake - Sitting Bull - is one of the most famous Native American chiefs in history. Did you know he spent a few years as a refugee? In 1877 he fled to Canada, almost a year after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand. In 1881, he returned to the US, was taken prisoner, and later returned to a reservation.
Image: Imago/StockTrek Images
Neven Subotic
Like his colleague Vedad Ibisevic of Hertha Berlin, Bundesliga soccer player Neven Subotic - who has just signed for Köln from Dortmund - fled the war in Bosnia as a child. Well aware of hardship, Subotic in 2012 created a foundation to help give people in the poorest parts of the world access to clean water and sanitation.
