Austria, Hungary agree on joint EU outer border protection efforts

Austria and Hungary are to join efforts to secure the EU's outer borders as part of efforts to curb the migrant influx, ministers from both countries agreed following a meeting on Friday.

Austrian Defence Minister Hans Peter Doskozil and Interior Minister Wolfgang Sobotka met with their Hungarian counterparts Istvan Simicsko and Sandor Pinter in the town of St. Martin an der Raab in Austria's southeast, to hash out an agreement, according to an APA report.

"Specifically, we have come to an agreement that within a month we will have set up a working group that will technically organize, prepare and, in due course, implement the joint bilateral protection of the outer borders," Doskozil stated following the meeting.

He further said that in relation to the repatriation of migrants, a working group would be set up to determine "how to deal with Dublin cases, how to deal with people who we wish to repatriate."

The minister said all attendees to the meeting agreed it was not possible to implement solely national measures that have not been agreed upon with each other, that result in the building of fences.

Also agreed upon was a commitment to wanting the process of asylum application management to in future take place outside of the European Union.

Sobotka noted the migration issue was a European one, and could therefore only be lastingly solved on a European level. He added that a "secure procedure" for asylum must be possible outside of the EU, to have a regulated system for refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers.

From the Hungarian side, Simicsko said the standpoints of both countries had been brought closer together as a result of the meeting.

"We four ministers have today affirmed that the Schengen values, the Schengen borders, should be protected," he said.

He noted that soon Hungarian and Austrian military police would be protecting the outer borders of the EU, something he said he thinks would be a "large and exemplary step," and that "the EU will soon follow our lead."

Pinter in turn noted that a subsequent meeting will take place in Hungary in a month, where solutions the working groups have come up with are to be revealed. Endit