Prime ministers, interior ministers, foreign ministers, and police chiefs from Austria, Hungary, and Serbia gathered for a migration summit in Vienna on Friday, July 7th, with the express aim of working collectively to stem the flow of mass illegal migration into the three countries as well as the European Union via the infamous Balkan route.
The tripartite meeting, the third of its kind to take place since the format was launched last autumn, ended with the signing of a “Memorandum of Understanding,” in which the three countries agreed to, among other things, set up a new joint task force—one which other states can join, too—in order to bolster border protection, the Vienna-based newspaper Der Standard reports.
“We must realize that the EU’s asylum system is broken and does not work,” Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) said, adding that, through the trilateral agreement, Austria, Hungary, and Serbia have together “tightened the asylum brake significantly.”
Nehammer, who formerly served as interior minister before former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz was forced to step down amid a corruption scandal, noted that police cooperation between Austria, Hungary, and Serbia has been satisfactory and that he hoped that the three countries would soon sign an agreement to stem organized crime smuggling into the bloc.
“This can only be done together, and it can only be done if we are willing to work together as equals,” Nehammer emphasized.
The Austrian chancellor lauded his Serbian counterpart for discontinuing visa-free travel for Tunisian and Indian nationals, which he noted: “immediately led to a significant drop in the number of asylum applications in Austria.”
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in his opening statements, praised Nehammer for having “defended” Hungary’s position on the EU asylum and migration act at the latest EU summit.
“We protect Europe from the pressure of migration,” stressed the Hungarian Prime Minister, insisting that without Hungary and Serbia, Austria, Germany, and the Netherlands would be confronted with “hundreds of thousands more migrants than [they are] today.”
Orbán also took the opportunity to slam the “forced redistribution” of migrants across the bloc that is set to occur under the new EU Migration Pact. “We not only have to defend ourselves against the migrants but also against Brussels,” the Hungarian prime minister argued.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, for his part, said he was “pleased that [Serbia] has contributed to the further stability of Europe,” and added that he was “satisfied with what was discussed at the previous meetings.”
Near the end of the press conference, the Austrian chancellor challenged Orbán’s claim that Hungarian measures, like its border fence and strict migration policies, were preventing migrants from reaching Austria. “Up to 80% of migrants come to Austria via Hungary,” Nehammer began. “That’s why Hungary has 45 asylum applications and we have 109,000. The system doesn’t work. We’re working on making it better.”
For this, Nehammer was lambasted by the FPÖ security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer, who criticized that he had “again pulled off his insubstantial announcement show and also misused it to get back slaps from the Brussels EU establishment with ‘Hungary bashing’.”
