Austria unveils plan for integration of asylum seekers

Austrian minister for foreign affairs and integration Sebastian Kurz unveiled on Thursday a 50-point-plan for the integration of foreigners, made particularly in light of the large influx of asylum seekers in the second half of the year.

A key point of the plan is that those persons who do not show willingness to integrate will be subject to various sanctions, such as having their guaranteed minimum income as stipulated by Austrian law shortened by the government by a maximum of 50 percent.

Accepted asylum seekers will be subject to a specific integration plan, such as having to attend certain classes regularly and with compulsory make-up lessons should they not.

Numerous subsidies are also to be provided, with a particular emphasis here on German language courses.

The paper was prepared with the assistance of an expert council headed by Heinz Fassmann, who joined Kurz at the press conference held in Vienna to present the plan.

He, like Kurz, believed the majority of the expected 50,000 accepted asylum seekers for 2015 will show willingness to integrate.

He noted however it is important not to make the same mistakes that were made during the "Gastarbeiter" (guest worker) decades of the 1960s and 1970s, when foreign workers came to Austria but were not subject to sufficient integration practices. Endit