Germany turning back more and more migrants: Austria

Austria wants to cut the number of new refugees it receives after asylum requests tripled to 90,000 a year ago, Chancellor Werner Faymann told reporters after a government meeting.

There was widespread praise for Ms Merkel’s opening of the border to all Syrians in August but border controls with Austria were reintroduced in mid-September and the arrival of 1.1 asylum seekers by the end of the year raised concerns about housing and infrastructure.

She also described as economic migrants those who fled from war, but travelled through several European Union countries to settle in one they considered more affluent, such as Sweden or Germany, which is now sending hundreds of migrants back to Austria.

New Year’s Eve attacks on women in Cologne, blamed on migrants, have put pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Last month Austria sent hundreds of migrants back to neighbouring Slovenia for lying about their nationality in an apparent attempt to improve their chances of being granted asylum.

“German politicians seem to have made a decision to act with more firmness”.

Germany Tuesday admitted that it was refusing entry to an increasing number of migrants seeking to cross over from Austria, but said it was not a result of any policy changes.

Now an Austrian police spokeswoman has revealed Germany is refusing more and more migrants entry at its southern border, sending a few hundred back to Austria every day since the beginning of the month. “We apply the valid legal rules”.

Sweden, the Netherlands and United Kingdom are among the other countries favoured as a final destination.

“What is certain is that soon we are going to become more active at our borders”, Faymann said in an interview with the Kronen-Zeitung daily to be published on Tuesday.

He said Austria needed to explore differentiating between those fleeing war and those who migrate for economic reasons.

Denmark in turn introduced spot checks on arrivals from Germany, explaining that its actions were a direct response to the new approach being followed by its Nordic neighbour.

“It is true that the number is higher in the past days”, said a federal police spokesman, adding however that the number of people turned away at the border was in the “high double-digits to low triple-digits and therefore still within daily fluctuations”.