Croatia gets the green light, but other applicants will need to wait before their citizens can enter the EU without border-checksContinue reading
In an interview with Austrian daily Kleine Zeitung, Austrian Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler said that Hungary could be excluded from the Schengen agreement, according to the logic of the Austrian veto against Romania’s and Bulgaria’s Schengen accession.
The fact that the balance of power in the Austrian government coalition is crooked, could also be seen from the fact that the Federal President and ex-Green Party leader Alexander Van der Bellen pledged his full support to Romania immediately after Austria’s Schengen veto.
Now the current Green Party leader is following up and questioning the veto of the coalition partner Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). In reality, there are problems in Hungary, through which the lion’s share of the 100,000 asylum seekers registered in the Alpine republic have come.
If we were to stick to the logic of the ÖVP Minister of the Interior, then Hungary would have to be kicked out of Schengen,
says the vice-chancellor.
According to the politician, when Austria vetoed the Schengen accession of Romania and Bulgaria, it pointed out that they were not doing everything in their power to stop migrants.
The 75,000 to 80,000 people allegedly not registered in Hungary are proof that “a fence alone does not help anything,” This statement can be seen as a side blow against the coalition partner. After all, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) wants to support Bulgaria in building physical barriers at the EU’s external border with EU funds.
What will really help to stop or at least control illegal migration is not clearer after reading the interview. One cannot help feeling that Kogler is willing to use any means to raise the political profile of the Greens in the coalition. If Hungary, the whipping boy of the left-liberal media, has to serve as an example, all the better: on the one hand, one can serve one’s political clientele and on the other, maintain the appearance of statesmanlike pragmatism.
This article was originally published on our sister site, Ungarn Heute.
Featured photo via Facebook/Werner Kogler