(AP) — Germany’s interior minister says a new plan to establish so-called “transit centers” at the Austrian border to quickly process new migrant arrivals envisions sending people directly back to where they first entered the European Union, primarily Greece and Italy.
Saying he was “convinced these will be very difficult talks,” Horst Seehofer said Thursday “it is a problem for all of Europe and we want to negotiate with Italy and Greece” to send them back migrants who had already registered and applied for asylum in those countries, the main entry points to the EU.
The comments in Vienna came after talks with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who backed the plan, saying that he hoped it could be resolved during his country’s EU presidency, which just began and lasts six months.