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Joint exercise of the Austrian border guard with police officers and soldiers at the border crossing from Nickelsdorf to Hungary.
Image: dpa
Vienna wants to work together with Berlin and other EU governments to be “stronger and more efficient” in border protection, repatriation and asylum procedures. Germany could participate with the border police, asylum experts and document examiners.
ORAustria has announced more decisive measures against illegal immigration in cooperation with Germany and other EU countries. “We want to act more strongly and effectively against illegal migration in the Western Balkans,” said Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) of the “Welt”. Therefore, several EU countries, including Germany, would jointly build a platform against illegal immigration at the initiative of Austria. The European Commission will also participate.
The aim is “to pool our forces and our knowledge in the areas of border protection, repatriation, fighting human smugglers and efficient asylum procedures,” Nehammer told the newspaper. To do this, a Vienna-based coordination platform will be created, but this is not a new EU agency. The basis for this was established at a ministerial meeting in Vienna in July. Germany could participate, for example, by sending border police officers, asylum experts or document auditors.
Furthermore, according to the report, Nehammer announced that he intends to monitor Austria’s borders on a large scale with drones in the future. “We hope we can detect significantly more illegal border crossings with this,” the minister said. As soon as human traffickers or illegal immigrants are identified by a drone, they should be arrested by mobile task forces on the ground, if possible. Furthermore, “ever-changing escape routes” could be better identified with the help of drones.
