By ULIANA
PAVLOVA
The Austrian
parliament on Wednesday passed a controversial law which allows asylum claims
to be rejected at the border, just days after the anti-immigrant Freedom Party
won big in the first round of presidential elections.
The new law allows
the government to declare a “state of emergency” if migrant numbers suddenly
rise and to reject the claims of most asylum-seekers at the border. Only those
who can prove they are in danger or who have immediate family members in
Austria would be allowed in. An exception could be made for women with small
children and for unaccompanied minors.
The state of
emergency would come into force for six months but could be extended for three
more six-month periods.
The law must still
be passed by Austria’s second parliamentary chamber, which is a formality, and
the interior ministry expects to begin enforcing it at the start of June.
Italian Prime
Minister Matteo Renzi criticized the Austrians, saying they were acting
“shamelessly against European rules, as well as being against history, against
logic and against the future.”
However, Austrian
Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka blamed other EU countries for “failing to do
their part” on migration, saying: “We cannot shoulder the whole world’s
burden.”
Austria received
around 90,000 asylum requests in 2015, the second-highest number in the EU per
capita, according to AP.
On Sunday, Norbert
Hofer of the far-right Freedom Party shocked the political establishment when
he won the first round of a presidential election on an anti-migrant platform.
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