Austria Restricted Immigration as EU Schengen, Dublin Regulations 'Failed'

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, UNHCR said that Austria and Slovenia risk violating EU law as they placed daily limits on a number of people entering their territory and number of asylum applications. The two countries, as well as Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia agreed to jointly profile and register refugees and asylum-seekers at the Macedonian-Greek border.

“It is a fact that the European Union did not control the border of the EU, it promised, but it failed. The EU did not keep the promise to protect the border, Schengen was not kept. There were lots of mistakes, broken promises of the EU. And now it was a measure of self-defense of Austria Slovenia and other countries,” Franz Obermayr said.

Europe has been beset by a massive refugee crisis, with hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants fleeing their home countries to escape violence and poverty. Many of them take the West Balkan route, which crosses Greece, using the country as an entry-point to the bloc from which they travel to wealthier EU states where they intend to apply for asylum.

According to the EU border agency Frontex, the number of migrants and refugees who entered Greece by sea in January 2016 reached 68,000, 38 times higher that during the same month a year ago.