Austria building barriers at border

Tensions mount with Germany as influx of refugees continues

Austria yesterday outlined plans to build barriers including a fence at a busy border crossing to slow an influx of migrants as Germany accused Austrian authorities of shuttling groups of refugees in its direction after dark.

Austria has largely served as a conduit into Germany for hundreds of thousands of Middle Eastern, African and Asian refugees and migrants fleeing wars and hardship who have travelled from the Mediterranean and through the Balkans since early September.

But as the southern German province of Bavaria, which borders Austria, has complained increasingly stridently to Berlin that it is reaching the limits of its capacity to receive refugees, concern in Austria has risen that Germany could further restrict arrivals, creating a backlog.

German interior minister Thomas de Maiziere accused Austria yesterday of driving refugees to the German border after dark, suggesting it was doing so to help them cross undetected, and he said he expected Vienna to return to an orderly process immediately.

Shortly before de Maiziere’s remarks, Austrian chancellor Werner Faymann said Austria was planning to build barriers at the Spielfeld border crossing with Slovenia through which several thousand refugees pass daily.

Having criticised the government of neighbouring Hungary for building razor-wire border fences to keep migrants out, Austria was at pains to say the Spielfeld barriers it was planning would be much more limited and were not comparable to those of Hungary.

Austria is considering building a border fence to stem the flow of migrants https://t.co/Qu2KdyShwC pic.twitter.com/FBlHojhAUX

— The New York Times (@nytimes) October 28, 2015

“We want to be able to carry out controls on people, and for that one needs certain technical security measures,” Faymann, a Social Democrat, told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

His coalition partner, vice chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner, a conservative, said another aim of the measure was to discourage migrants.

“Slowly word will spread among the refugees that individual states do not have a form of invitation policy but are at the limits of their capacity and are carrying out tougher controls and security measures,” Mitterlehner said.

Speaking in Kosovo, Austrian president Heinz Fischer said his country had handled refugee crises before though it was now facing an influx the likes of which the Alpine nation of 8.5 million people had never experienced. “We are reaching the limits of our capacity,” he said.

Austria announced tougher border controls last month but since then it has largely refrained from implementing them when large groups of refugees have arrived.

The flow of migrants shifted this month after Hungary fenced off its border with Croatia, prompting those trying to reach Germany to transit Slovenia rather than Hungary.