The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Germany and Austria are in dispute with Luxembourg over the admission of Afghan refugees

2021-08-31T18:14:51.259Z


The EU interior ministers want to discuss developments in Afghanistan. In the run-up, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Asselborn called for resistance against Austria and Slovenia. There was criticism of that - from Germany and Austria.


Enlarge image

Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg

Photo: LEONHARD FOEGER / REUTERS

The EU states are currently discussing how to deal with refugees from Afghanistan who want to escape the rule of the radical Islamic Taliban.

Now Germany and Austria have sharply rejected the criticism of the Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn's refugee policy.

"Mr. Asselborn should look a little more closely at the problems that the large countries have in the European Union," said Federal Interior Minister Horst Seehofer.

We are not talking about a few hundred people here, but about many thousands who are already in Germany.

One must also ensure that arriving people do not pose a security risk to the population in Germany.

"Simply absurd"

Asselborn's statements were "simply absurd," said Austria's Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg. The country is home to the fourth largest community of Afghans in the world per capita and the second largest within the EU. »It would be welcomed if Asselborn showed a similar level of solidarity and humanity. For that, Luxembourg would have to take in six times as many Afghans as there are currently living there, ”said Schallenberg.

Asselborn had previously criticized Austria and Slovenia in the newspaper »Welt«. With a view to the meeting of the EU interior ministers on Tuesday, he said about Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and the Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Janša: »I hope that there will be resistance against Mr Kurz from Austria and Mr Janša from Slovenia, who are both clear and definitely in line with Orbán, Salvini and Le Pen. You all reject direct human solidarity at this extremely dramatic moment with the tortured people in Afghanistan. "He went on:" You lose the quality of being a European. In contrast, the majority of the member states must stand for the values ​​of the European Union. "

Austria's Chancellor Kurz had spoken out against granting protection to those seeking protection from Afghanistan.

The Slovenian Prime Minister Janša had declared on Twitter that one should only accept people "who helped us during the NATO operation".

Slovenia currently holds the EU Council Presidency.

The Austrian Foreign Minister Schallenberg said of Asselborn's criticism: "Abusing the tragic situation in Afghanistan for cheap populism and blindly repeating the mistakes of 2015 and 2016 does not make you a good European." Austria counts on local help and does not want to accept refugees from Afghanistan.

Seehofer had also spoken out against specific contingents for people in need of protection.

"I do not think it is very wise if we are talking about numbers here, because numbers naturally trigger something," said the CSU politician in Brussels.

You don't want to trigger a “pull effect”.

At the same time, Seehofer emphasized that the federal government had always agreed on settlement programs for particularly "abused people".

"We are ready for that too," he said.

EU Commission calls for more people from Afghanistan to be accepted

The EU Commission recently called on all EU countries to take in more people from Afghanistan through the resettlement program of the UN refugee agency. Asselborn supported this demand and campaigned for tens of thousands of Afghan refugees to be accepted into the EU. "The European Union should be ready to provide 40,000 to 50,000 resettlement places for Afghan refugees," he said. »With this we would bring girls, women, former judges, human rights activists or other persons whose lives are in immediate danger to the EU in a legal and safe way in cooperation with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). «

According to Slovene, the topic of the ministerial consultations will be, among other things, the possible effects of developments in Afghanistan on the threat of terrorism and migration towards Europe.

At the same time, countries like Germany want to make it clear once again that former local workers threatened by the Taliban and other Afghans who are particularly vulnerable can count on support even after the end of the military evacuation mission.

lau / mrc / dpa

Source: spiegel

All news articles on 2021-08-31

You may like

Trends 24h

News/Politics 2024-03-27T16:45:54.081Z

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.