Austrian official criticizes EU handling of migrant crisis

Austrian defense minister Hans Peter Doskozil on Thursday criticized the European Union(EU)'s handling of the migrant crisis, local newspaper the Krone reported.

He used Thursday's deployment of 66 Austrian troops to secure the border between Hungary and Serbia as a basis for the criticisms, giving a negative assessment of the terror situation in Austria as well as the migrant crisis.

"In Europe, we have not learned a lot from these events," he said, adding "we are still discussing ways to deal with the situation."

He further argued that the Balkans migration route was not entirely closed, with hundreds of people a day continuing to be smuggled into Austria, Germany, and other European countries.

He posed the question: "European Union -- where is this going?" and said he would organize further courses of action himself.

This included a meeting at his initiative of Central European defense ministers in the state of Burgenland next week, with talks to center on tackling illegal migration and support for border protection measures.

The minister also took aim at Turkey's recent threats to scrap its refugee deal with the EU. He argued that the necessary repatriations of growing numbers of refugees from the Greek Isles to Turkey had not taken place, and that such threats from Turkey were "not acceptable." Endit