Austria could declare state of emergency on asylum seeker issue

Austria could declare a state of emergency on its asylum seeker intake over the coming months if it continues to be overburdened with applications, Interior Minister Johanna Mikl-Leitner said on Monday.

Speaking to the Oe1 Morgenjournal radio program ahead of a trip to Brussels for a meeting with other interior ministers to discuss the issue, Mikl-Leitner said Austria would push for a zero-intake in the debate over 40,000 recognized refugees that are to be relocated to other countries within the European Union (EU).

Mikl-Leitner said Austria has currently received the same number of asylum applications as Greece and Italy combined, which per capita means it is processing 10 times as many applications as the two aforementioned countries combined.

She did however say Austria could take in some of the relocated refugees under condition that the country from which they are to come is under greater load than Austria, and that it is undertaking its responsibility of properly registering the refugees, neither of which she believed Greece or Italy are doing.

She also called for a "stable asylum system" as a condition for Greece's third bailout package, which could include asylum centers on the outer EU borders, claiming asylum seekers are currently using Greece as a "transit country" by the thousands, before using people smugglers to make their way elsewhere in Europe.

Meanwhile, the EU ministers on Monday failed to agree on a plan to relocate 40,000 refugees in Italy and Greece.

"I'm disappointed, we have almost reached the goal," said Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for home affairs, following the meeting of the Justice and Home Affairs Council.