From Brussels, Austrian Chancellor defends again his decision against Romania in Schengen / “Austrian police investigated this”

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  1. **Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer continues to support the thesis that large numbers of migrants are arriving in Austria without being registered in Romania. “We know that some of them passed through Romania because the Austrian police investigated this,” Nehammer claimed on Thursday, a week after the decision blocking our country’s entry into Schengen.**

    He made these statements ahead of the European Council meeting in Brussels, the first meeting of EU heads of state and government since the JHA decision against Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen area.

    Asked in Brussels about Austria’s refusal to welcome Romania into Schengen, Karl Nehammer reiterated the “huge” number of migrants who arrived in Austria this year – 100,000, of which 75,000 were not registered by the other countries they passed through:

    * “75,000 unregistered persons arrived in Austria. We know that some of them passed through Romania because the Austrian police investigated this. A solution must be found.”

    To a journalist’s remark that these figures are disputed by the Romanian authorities, the Austrian Chancellor replied, “But you know that the Romanian police only know those registered in Romania. In Austria we have registered a huge number”.

    He also claimed in Brussels that the JHA vote was not against Romania, but because the migration issue is a security issue:

    * „Nu este împotriva României și a Bulgariei. Este o chestiune de securitate pentru întreaga Uniune Europeană și trebuie să spunem asta și să o rezolvăm împreună”.

    **First meeting of heads of state in Brussels after Romania’s rejection in Schengen. Iohannis announced he will open the Schengen topic**

    The issue of Schengen enlargement, after the vote that keeps Romania and Bulgaria outside the European free movement area, is not on the agenda of Thursday’s European Council meeting in Brussels.

    However, President Klaus Iohannis said he would raise the issue in the Council plenary, but practical solutions will be found at the next JHA Council in 2023:

    * “I have seen that there are many public advisers who are creating expectations about today’s and tomorrow’s Council. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that I will have many discussions, I will raise the issue in the Council plenary, I will explain once again why Romania should become part of the Schengen area, but practical solutions will be found in the next JHA Council, which will be better prepared.
    * I don’t think anyone imagined that from last week until today Austria or the Netherlands have changed their attitude and what we didn’t solve last week in the JHA, we solve today in the European Council. It is not good to have such expectations, because they do not come true.
    * A lot of work is needed. We have all been involved, and the colleagues who are now in the room with me and who care intensely about these issues, and the ministers who have been involved have cared, they have done their job. I thought it was a bit strange the blame-hunting that has gone on in some quarters.
    * The culprits are not to be found in Bucharest, nor in Romania. You know very well why we could not vote, but we are not discouraged. I will not give in under any circumstances and I will not give in until Romania becomes a member of Schengen”.

    **Cele cinci condiții cu care Austria merge la Consiliul European**

    Austria’s veto against Romania and Bulgaria joining the Schengen area was intended to increase pressure on the European Commission to take “stronger” action against illegal migration, and Chancellor Karl Nehammer will go to the European Council summit with five conditions on asylum. One of his proposals would be to build a fence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border, writes the daily Kronen Zeitung.

    Austria’s federal government wants to get more money from the European Union first and foremost, and its first condition would be that the EC pay for national police operations abroad to combat illegal migration.

    In addition, the Commission should increasingly support countries at external borders in border protection, especially with money for future infrastructure projects. For example, says the Kronen Zeitung, by building fences on the Bulgarian-Turkish border (an idea that the government in Sofia has been toying with for many years).

    The European Commission should also set up and fund a pilot project for rapid asylum procedures at the EU’s external border, Austria proposes.

    Vienna would also like asylum procedures to be possible in safe third countries – a model that Denmark and the UK, for example, follow.

    At the same time, Austria wants to make it easier to revoke the protection status of people who have committed crimes.

    Another condition that Vienna is setting is that a new European directive on asylum applications should in fact be drafted, ensuring, for example, faster protection status or faster access to the labour market for these people (at a time when Austria is also facing an acute shortage of staff, especially for unskilled jobs – editor’s note).

    The Austrian federal government has already taken “several other measures to ensure that the asylum brake is effective and that the pressure on Austria from asylum seekers is reduced”, sources quoted by “Kronen Zeitung” said ahead of the EU summit.

    Vienna will thus show that it has cooperated with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and obtained from him that the visa-free regime for Tunisians and Indians be revoked. On the other hand, Austria has already announced a joint operation with Hungarian police, “Operation Fox”, to prevent illegal immigrants from reaching Austria.

    **”Lifting the veto only when Romania and Bulgaria improve border protection”**

    After the JHA vote on 8 December, both Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer and Interior Minister Gerhard Karner argued that of the more than 100,000 immigrants or asylum seekers who had arrived in Austria, 75,000 had not been registered anywhere, and that this should have happened when crossing the EU’s external border. They claimed that many of the unregistered had come via Romania or Bulgaria, data contradicted by the Romanian authorities.

    * “Romania and Bulgaria have different figures. These countries would not even know the true number if they did not register people,” Nehammer explained the discrepancy between the migrant data presented by the Austrian government and the authorities in Bucharest and Sofia.
    He stressed in an interview with public TV that lifting the veto will only be possible when Romania and Bulgaria improve border protection.

    Asked why Austria did not take the usual EU route of seeking allies among other countries and thus achieving change, Nehammer said that no other country has – in proportion to its population – a similar migration pressure as Austria.

    The Netherlands has also long tried to find support in the EU Council, but failed, and other EU countries simply have a different awareness of the problem than Austria. As the European Commission did not act, “strong” action had to be taken at national level as well, the chancellor argued.

  2. Does he have to give more of this stupid excuses? We get it, you’re against Romania in Schengen, you don’t have to melt our brains every time you come up with new reason. What’s next? “Unregistered immigrants told us not to accept Romania’s accession to Schengen, or they’ll come into Austria”

  5. [this is his actual statement go to around 2m20s](https://newsroom.consilium.europa.eu/permalink/242103)

    So he is like.. “austrian police knows 20k came from Romania and we know this because romanian police know it too because they registered them” So you mean did their job!?

    Then he says we all have to help Bulgaria and Romania defend the EU border, but why would this have been impossible if we joined Schengen? One could argue it would have made it easier.

  7. If hes still crying about this shit , then shall ask Hungary wtf they doin , not us! We are not your neighboors you fool!

  8. “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” A certain German foreign affairs minister.

  9. Everybody is getting tired of Austria and Hungary

    Let’s shoot someone in Serbia, and get the party started ? 😀 (yes, that was a joke, I am not advocating shooting someone in Serbia)

  10. Hope Romania vetoes any aid package/legislation that would help Austria. It wouldn’t be a veto, you see, it would be a cry for help about not being let in Schengen

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