MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz should set up bilateral agreements with North African countries to build special "protection zones" outside the European Union to send there migrants without grounds for asylum in Austria.
On Monday, Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern said that the country's authorities could consider the introduction of a special border regime amid the influx of asylum seekers, with September 6 named as "a good date for the cabinet meeting to evaluate the draft."
"Migrants without a reason for asylum have to be returned. We have to build protection zones on-site to prevent people from leaving their home region or from getting "caught" by dubious tractors [in make-shift camps]. We have to build "EU-waiting areas" e.g. in Northern Africa for people who neither have a reason for asylum in Austria nor can go back to their home country. Or for people who forfeited their right to stay here due to e.g. a violation of Austrian law. We urge foreign minister to set up bilateral agreements, so that we can send these people back to their home countries," Lugar said.
According to recent estimates of the Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil, Austria has accepted up to 26,000 asylum applications so far in 2016, while the limit set for the number of asylum applications the country is ready to accept in 2016 is 37,500. This limit, in Doskozil's opinion, may be already reached by November.
Europe is struggling to find a solution to a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Frontex detected over 1.83 million illegal border crossings in 2015, in contrast to some 283,000 in 2014.
