The Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer wants to stop asylum seekers from picking and choosing the countries they apply for asylum in and is forming an alliance with Serbia and Hungary to that end.

A memorandum of understanding about pushing back illegal migrants away from the external borders of the EU was signed by leaders of Serbia, Hungary, and Austria on Wednesday.

The MoU was signed in Belgrade on Wednesday as Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic met with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer, Vreme reported.

The EU asylum system has failed, Nehammer told the press. “Asylum a la Carte” would have to end, and “asylum tourism” would have to be stopped, Nehammer added.

The summit saw Austria sign a memorandum of understanding with Serbia and Hungary, which is meant to bolster the cooperation between the three countries. The goal: fighting illegal migration, terrorism and organised crime while clearly separating asylum and migration.

Austrian asylum seeker numbers are triple those of last year. The Austrian conservative party ÖVP is looking to position itself as a “hawk” on migration and refugees ahead of the 2024 election, an approach that last saw it win in 2017.

People who come for economic reasons should be treated differently from those seeking protection, Nehammer stressed.

Nehammer referred to the pact as “a partnership against human trafficking”.

Vucic told a joint press conference after the signing that the action, which envisages deployment of a stronger police presence along Belgrade’s southern border with Skopje, would start “before the end of the year.”

See Also:

NATO allies wake up to Russian supremacy in the Arctic

The three countries hope to send a strong signal to Brussels, Vucic highlighted.

Orbán, for his part, insisted that migration “should be prevented, not managed,” adding that “we share our fate with Serbia” and working together was crucial in this “matter of survival.”

Orbán said that 250,000 illegal border crossings had been stopped in Hungary this year, “aggressiveness is increasing, they are not only armed, but they are also using them”, Telex reported.

Hungary was in a particularly tricky situation as it receives both irregular migrants from Serbia and refugees from Ukraine, and the only way to stop this “is to say there is no crossing over our borders”, Orbán added.

Hungary has continued to insist it has come under increased strain due to refugees fleeing the war from bordering Ukraine.

This is the second meeting of the leaders in as many months, with the first Hungarian-Austrian-Serbian tripartite summit held in Budapest on 3 October, Telex reported.

Source: Euractiv