Off the wire
• Some financial services firms might relocate to EU in wake of Brexit vote: British central bank governor  • 1st LD Writethru: Oil prices retreat on profit-taking  • Urgent: Gold down on stronger U.S. dollar  • Robinho hopes to play 90 minutes in Copa Libertadores  • UN agency concerned by EU-Turkey agreement to return all new irregular migrants  • Roundup: More than 2.4 million people displaced in Yemen since start of conflict  • Sao Paulo director wants more from players  • British FTSE 100 decreases 0.92 pct on Tuesday  • Czech to accept Syrian refugees directly from Turkey  • Contiguous U.S. has record warm winter: NOAA  
You are here: 　 Home

Austria considers stance on refugee crisis validated following EU summit

Xinhua, March 9, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Austrian federal government considered its position on the refugee crisis as validated following the European Union (EU) summit with Turkey on Monday.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Minister of the Interior Johanna Mikl-Leitner said the outcome of the summit was "at most a very small step in the right direction," and that Austria would maintain its daily upper limits for the intake of asylum seekers, Austria Press Agency reported.

She said the goal in her view is for a "quick, large solution" for the crisis to be achieved at the EU level, for which each point to come from the summit will now be worked through in order to bring about a resolution.

In any case however Austria will hold to its current position, and "not budge a millimeter," she added.

Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil also weighed in on the developments, noting that Austria is under no obligation to accept more asylum seekers should a distribution of their numbers across EU member states take place.

He said other countries are "very clearly" obligated to do so first, with Austria already having many of them in the country. Endite