Austria says it is planning to phase out special measures that have allowed thousands of migrants to travel freely from Hungary to Western Europe. Chancellor Werner Faymann said Austria would remove the emergency measures for asylum seekers "step by step".| They aren't refugees, they're shock troops... |
The German interior ministry said the decision to allow migrants in over recent days was an exception and that the EU's rules requiring asylum seekers to be processed in the first country they arrived in remained valid.
Amid sharp disagreements among EU members, the UN's Refugee Chief Antonio Guterres said the crisis was "manageable" if member states could agree a joint plan.
Mr Faymann issued his statement after speaking by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Sunday.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely," the Austrian chancellor said. "We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation. Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality," he added.
The change means that Austria will restore spot checks on those entering the country, as it had before the weekend.
On Sunday, a group of cars driven by German and Austrian activists travelled to the Hungarian border to pick up migrants and distribute food. One of the Austrian activists taking part, Angelika Neuwirth, told the BBC: "I think this is my duty. I can't close my eyes anymore."
Hungarian police said anyone taking people across the border was breaking the law on people smuggling - although the activists were able to collect migrants without being stopped.
Thousands of people have passed through Austria this weekend. But now the Austrian government says it is time to slowly stop the unimpeded flow of migrants and re-introduce spot checks on people entering the country.
The decision to open the borders was always meant as a short-term reaction to what Chancellor Faymann called "an emergency situation" - intended to ease the migrant crisis in Hungary. In the long term, Austria wants European Union countries to share the burden of refugees. The migrant crisis has caused tensions between Austria and Hungary.
In an interview on Austrian television, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called on Austria to close its borders.
| BBC does it again: the single 'refugee' they show in a photo is a cute young girl. They don't show pics of the many, many young tough men marching through streets, lying down on railroad tracks, and chanting in unison. Does anyone truly think that "refugees" act like that? |