Austria Urges EU to Cut Aid for Nations Rejecting Failed Migrants

Local Editor

Austria's Foreign Minister, Sebastian Kurz, called on the European Union on Thursday to stop giving aid to countries that refuse to take back nationals whose asylum claims were rejected.

"We in Europe need to finally start stepping up pressure if we want the repatriation system to work properly," Kruz said.

He specifically mentioned Morocco, Tunisia and Pakistan, which he said were allocated a large chunk of the bloc's annual $12-billion aid budget.

"At the moment, the EU gives 480 million euros to Morocco and 414 million to Tunisia every year, and yet these countries refuse to take back asylum seekers," Kurz explained.

For his part, Germany's vice-chancellor Sigmar Gabriel last month said EU aid should be withdrawn if a migrant's country of origin fails to cooperate on repatriation.

Meanwhile, the issue is considered the worst migrant crisis since World War II, and the flow of people fleeing war and poverty shows no sign of abating despite wintry weather conditions along the so-called Balkan migrant route.

In 2015, over a million people reached Europe's shores, nearly half of them Syrians fleeing a brutal crisis that has killed more than a quarter of a million people.

Relatively, Austria's new Defense Minister Hans Peter Doskozil on Thursday slammed the EU border agency for lacking in action and being "way too bureaucratic."

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team