MOSCOW (Sputnik) — It is "impossible" for Austria to accept more than 100,000 migrants a year, the country’s vice chancellor, Reinhold Mitterlehner, said, as broadcast by local media Monday.
"[Austria can accept] around 90-100,000 [refugees a year], any more would simply not be possible," Mitterlehner told the ORF radio station.
Austria expects to receive about 95,000 asylum applications this year, which is around 1 percent of the country’s population. Some 28,000 asylum seekers registered in the country last year.
The European Union is currently struggling to manage a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
Last week, the European Commission proposed to create a European Border and Coast Guard to better protect the European Union's external borders.
