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Austrian Chancellor Calls for Building Walls Along EU External Border

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - Walls and barriers should be erected along the external border of the European Union to fight illegal migration, Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer told a German newspaper.
Sputnik
"Physical infrastructure and barriers are necessary to protect the external borders," he said.
He stressed that the protection of EU borders was a necessity, and if Europe was unable to do that, "then the Schengen area would become absurd." The Austrian chancellor further urged putting a stop to migrant flows through safe third countries to the EU.
Nehammer said that EU funding was needed for the construction of walls and fences on the bloc's external borders.
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Earlier in the day, a German daily reported that Nehammer vowed to block a EU summit final resolution if no concrete steps to curb illegal migration are reflected in the document. He called the EU's asylum system "broken," citing a surge in asylum bids from migrants who entered the 27-nation bloc illegally. About three-quarters of the 100,000 people who sought asylum in Austria last year had not been registered in any other EU or Schengen member state.
The eight EU nations — Austria, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Slovakia — demanded on Monday that the EU executive and the Frontex border protection agency act tougher on illegal migration, increase pushbacks and use visas as leverage against reluctant countries of origin.
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