Interior Minister Karner warns of illegal migration and criticizes Vienna’s Mayor Ludwig. He gets support from the Tyrolean Economic Association.
“Illegal Migration”. There is no term, the Interior Minister Gerhard Karner used more frequently on Monday – with the possible exception of “smuggler mafia”. The Minister of the Interior has been in office for exactly a year and in his assessment focused entirely on the issue of refugees. There were 110,000 “apprehensions” at the borders this year, and around 90,000 people applied for asylum. What Karner doesn’t say: most of them didn’t stay in Austria and moved on. There are not many more asylum seekers in basic care than at the beginning of the year.
Recently, the situation has apparently eased again: the number of seizures fell sharply in November, as Karner announced. The number is currently below 200 a day again, compared to around 700 at the beginning of November. This has a direct impact on the number of asylum applications, although the current figures for November are not yet available. But around 90 percent of those apprehended also apply for asylum, which means that there must have been a significant decrease here too. The lower numbers also have an impact on the accommodation: Currently, no more refugees are housed in tents.