On January 16, Vienna suspended the Schengen Agreement and toughened border checks, introducing a special procedure on its border with Slovenia at the Spielfeld border crossing.
"The procedure involves document checks, if there are any. A refugee’s data is entered into a single database. We will expand the scope of this system to other points in the coming days," Bezdeka said in a Moscow-Vienna video link broadcast at the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.
The measure aims to curb the refugee influx and deport refugees who have not filed an asylum request in Austria.
Europe continues to face a major refugee crisis, as hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers from conflict-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa attempt to escape poverty and violence in their home countries and come to Europe, seeking refuge.
