Austrian Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka is resisting EU efforts to increase his country’s migrant quota, claiming that 90 per cent of asylum seekers in Austria end up on welfare benefits and strain the system.
The Austrian Interior Minister once again railed at attempts by the European Union to send more migrants to Austria, saying that the vast majority end up claiming benefits, Kronen Zeitung reports.Sobotka says “Austria has borne the main load from 2014 to 2017. Our system is simply overwhelmed,”
Sobotka says “Austria has borne the main load from 2014 to 2017,” and “Our system is simply overwhelmed”.
He added: “If you look at the asylum seekers, you can see that 90 percent are migrating to the needs-oriented minimum security system,” and said it was still of great importance to maintain border security.
“We had up to 15,000 refugees per day on some days, today it is an average of 30.
“It is important to keep the pressure on those who bring migrants illegally to Europe via the Mediterranean and in other ways.” he added saying that if the European Union fails to keep up the pressure it will be a sign for people smugglers who will double their efforts to smuggle more migrants into Europe.
He warned that if the European Union fails to keep up the pressure it will send a signal to people-smugglers, who will double their efforts to bring more migrants into Europe.
The EU’s migrant redistribution plan has been controversial in many countries, and some like Hungary and Poland have rejected the plan entirely. Hungary held a referendum on the issue last year in which the vast majority of Hungarians voted to reject the proposal as well.
Hungary and Slovakia made an appeal to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) claiming that the distribution agreement was invalid as it did not have unanimous consent from member states and their citizens.
The ECJ rejected the appeal last week, but both Hungary and Poland have maintained that they will still refuse to take in migrants.
It was also revealed this week that foreign-born mothers are drastically overrepresented among those who claim child care allowance in Austria, with one-third of all claimants coming from foreign backgrounds.
In the capital of Vienna, foreign-background families account for 55 per cent of claimants, costing taxpayers millions of euros.
Heinz-Christian Strache, chairman of the anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ), said the figures “show how deeply we are in a crisis of fairness”.
Strache urged the Austrian public to vote out the current Austrian People’s Party-Social Democrat coalition, “before the Austrian population exchanges”.
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