Austria to cap number of refugees entering the country, slashing intake of asylum seekers by half

[Yo_Mama]

Source: Yahoo News.

His turnabout in policy will see Austria taking in just 37,500 refugees in 2016, a huge drop from the 90,000 people who claimed asylum in the country during 2015, DW reported. And the limited numbers policy is intended to last for four years, meaning the country will accept just 150,000 refugees before 2020.

Read more: https://uk.news.yahoo.com/austria-cap-number-refugees-entering-164945805.html

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Currently there is pressure in Germany to set a limit also - mainly from Bavaria up till now. I don't know whether this move will make it more or less likely. There are March elections so any announcement of measures probably will happen in February.

[pampango]

1. Deutsche Welle: Austrian politicians backpedal on refugee limits

Wednesday Austria's top politicians announced a cap on the number of asylum-seekers entering the Alpine country in 2016. By evening, they were already pulling back on that bold statement. By Thursday, they abandoned it.

The immediate backpedaling came after human rights experts, including the European Fundamental Rights Agency, said limiting asylum-seekers is against the Geneva Convention and EU law. "Clearly under EU law, you must deal with every asylum request that comes your way," Steve Peers, a law professor at the University of Essex, told DW. "I can't see how Austria's announcement is legal."

That apparently is how Doskozil, a trained lawyer, sees it as well. "From my view of the law, it's not allowed to send back people who have requested asylum," he said.

But Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner told Austrian broadcaster ORF migrants would be sent to so-called "hot spots" where they would be taken care of, or sent back to Slovenia. The drastic measures are only necessary, Mikl-Leitner said, because of the failure of EU member states to reach a collective solution. "I miss the hospitality and readiness to help from other EU countries," she said.

Gandner agreed. "It's wrong for Germany or Austria or Sweden to be contemplating upper limits when 26 other countries haven't even hit a lower limit." The discombobulated response comes because the mood of the country has changed. Faymann for months has been staving off calls from the far right to limit refugees.

http://www.dw.com/en/austrian-politicians-backpedal-on-refugee-limits/a-18995789

"It's wrong for Germany or Austria or Sweden to be contemplating upper limits when 26 other countries haven't even hit a lower limit." Liberal countries as opposed to conservative ones.