Off the wire
• Interview: Famous Croatian director Veljko Bulajic recounts his life in pictures  • Slovenia bans referendum initiative to block legislation giving police powers to army  • Macedonian gov't to invest in regional development projects  • Britain to grant spies more access to citizens' internet history  • Spanish stock market rises 0.08 pct, closes at 10,473 points  • Khartoum slams U.S. for renewing sanctions on Sudan  • Volkswagen crisis not to affect Spain's industry: car manufacturer  • IFM downgrades Rwanda's 2016 growth prospects to 6 pct  • NASA to recruit astronauts for Mars trip preparation  • Bahrain arrests 47 terror suspects, says backed by Iran  
You are here: 　 Home

Germany to establish joint police center with Austria on refugee issue

Xinhua, November 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Germany is planning to set up a joint police center with Austria to better deal with the refugee flow at German-Austrian borders, said a German government official on Wednesday.

Peter Altmaier, chief of staff of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office and refugee coordinator of the German government, made the announcement during a visit to a refugee shelter in the municipality of Wegscheid, a border crossing in southern German state of Bavaria that has seen many refugees coming from Austria to Germany in recent days.

Altmaier said Germany and Austria should work together more closely and improve coordination to better cope with the recent influx of refugees on their borders.

"We want to ensure that each side knows what the other side is doing, in order to prevent that refugees have to stand for hours in the cold, and to ensure a better coordination in refugee distributions," the coordinator said while announcing the plan of establishing a joint police center with German and Austrian officials.

According to the Federal Police Headquarters in Bavaria's capital Munich, around 30,000 asylum seekers have come to Germany from Austria in the last four days.

Germany and Austria have agreed on Oct. 30 to limit the number of border crossing points for refugees to five in order to better deal with the refugee flow.

A spokesperson for the German Interior Ministry said refugees who enter Germany through Austria would be brought across the German-Austrian border to Bavaria via only five crossing points in the future, adding that transfer and control points would be set up at the crossing sites, in a bid to ensure "an orderly process". Endit