Germany’s Merkel says EU to take stock of refugee crisis mid-Feb

The vast majority moved on to its larger neighbour, but a fraction have stayed.

Serbia from Wednesday will begin limiting migrant passage to those who state they plan to seek asylum in Austria or Germany only, a Serbian government minister was quoted as saying.

Public fears about immigration have fueled support for the far right, and calls for a cap on the number of migrants by members of the center-right People’s Party within the coalition government have grown.

Approximately 500 newly deployed troops will help police to processing up to 6,000 migrants a day at the Spielfeld crossing in the southern state of Styria, a police spokesman said on Tuesday.

In total, the number will be limited to 127,000 by the end of 2019.

The centre left has opposed such plans, but Chancellor Werner Faymann, a Social Democrat, in recent weeks called for deportations to be accelerated and more “economic migrants” to be turned away. Caught in Europe’s migration worst migration crisis in decades, Austria has progressively stepped up measures to slow the flow of people across its borders, often in coordination with neighbouring Germany, most migrants’ chosen destination.

But what if the surrounding countries decide to close their borders?

“The Geneva Refugee Convention of 1951 says that I am allowed to enter into a country as long as I intend to apply for asylum in that country, even if I do not possess the proper documents”, Melita Sunjic, a spokesperson for the UNHCR told German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.

Faymann at first balked issuing a refugee limit, taking his lead from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door policy.

Faymann referred to the measures as a second-best option while awaiting a European solution involving securing the European Union’s external borders, setting up centers there for people to apply for asylum, and spreading them around the bloc.