Austria's combative interior minister rejected Saturday EU criticism of its cap of 80 asylum claims per day, saying a letter of complaint from the bloc's migration commissioner was "sent to the wrong address".
"It should be generally known that Austria does not have an external EU border and is therefore not the first safe country that these people (migrants) set foot in," Johanna Mikl-Leitner told the Austria Press Agency (APA).
"If everybody stuck to the content of the letter (from migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos), then Austria would not have a problem with it. But the letter was clearly sent to the wrong address," Mikl-Leitner said.
Instead, the complaints should be sent to safe countries that the migrants pass through on their way to Austria, she added, in a reference in particular to Greece, the main entry point in the European Union for migrants.
In 2015, more than a million migrants reached Europe -- nearly half fleeing the five-year-old Syrian civil war, and many risking their lives crossing to Greece and Italy in overloaded boats.
The huge influx has caused a major political headache, fuelling the rise of populist parties on the back of concerns about jobs and security, and driving a wedge between members of the 28-nation EU.
Thousands more migrants have made the journey this year too, travelling up from Greece through countries in the western Balkans towards Austria and beyond.
Austria last year took in 90,000 asylum seekers, making it one of the highest recipients in the EU on a per-capita basis, while almost 10 times that number passed through, mostly to Germany and Sweden.
Faced with a resurgent far-right opposition topping opinion polls, Chancellor Werner Faymann's centrist government this week imposed the new cap and said only 3,200 migrants could transit per day.
Austria -- one of several members of the passport-free Schengen Zone to reimpose some border controls -- is also tightening these checks and will only take in 37,500 asylum seekers this year.
On Thursday, amid widespread criticism of Austria, Avramopoulos sent a letter to Mikl-Leiter calling the cap "plainly incompatible with Austria's obligations under European and international law."
The measures have also raised fears that when migrant numbers rise as expected again in the coming months as spring arrives, there will be a dangerous backlog of people along the Balkans route from Greece northwards.
- New asylum claims -
On Friday, when the new restrictions came into effect, no single migrant entered Austria, due to bad weather.
On Saturday 396 people, many of them families and including some elderly people, entered at the main Spielfeld border crossing point with Slovenia in southern Austria, police said.
But of these only 12 applied for asylum, the others saying they wished to travel onwards to Germany and transported in army buses to migrant centres, police spokesman Wolfgang Braunsar said.
Vienna says its unilateral moves are necessary because a German-backed EU plan agreed in November for Turkey to stem the flow of migrants leaving its shores for Greece is not yet working.
The EU and Turkey are due to hold a summit on March 6 to seek to firm up their agreement, which would see migrants flown directly from Turkey and shared -- in theory -- around certain members of the bloc.
In return for sealing its borders, Turkey would receive several billion euros (dollars) in aid and other sweeteners including reinvigorating its drive for EU membership and easing visa restrictions.
Austria’s combative interior minister rejected Saturday EU criticism of its cap of 80 asylum claims per day, saying a letter of complaint from the bloc’s migration commissioner was “sent to the wrong address”.
“It should be generally known that Austria does not have an external EU border and is therefore not the first safe country that these people (migrants) set foot in,” Johanna Mikl-Leitner told the Austria Press Agency (APA).
“If everybody stuck to the content of the letter (from migration commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos), then Austria would not have a problem with it. But the letter was clearly sent to the wrong address,” Mikl-Leitner said.
Instead, the complaints should be sent to safe countries that the migrants pass through on their way to Austria, she added, in a reference in particular to Greece, the main entry point in the European Union for migrants.
In 2015, more than a million migrants reached Europe — nearly half fleeing the five-year-old Syrian civil war, and many risking their lives crossing to Greece and Italy in overloaded boats.
The huge influx has caused a major political headache, fuelling the rise of populist parties on the back of concerns about jobs and security, and driving a wedge between members of the 28-nation EU.
Thousands more migrants have made the journey this year too, travelling up from Greece through countries in the western Balkans towards Austria and beyond.
Austria last year took in 90,000 asylum seekers, making it one of the highest recipients in the EU on a per-capita basis, while almost 10 times that number passed through, mostly to Germany and Sweden.
Faced with a resurgent far-right opposition topping opinion polls, Chancellor Werner Faymann’s centrist government this week imposed the new cap and said only 3,200 migrants could transit per day.
Austria — one of several members of the passport-free Schengen Zone to reimpose some border controls — is also tightening these checks and will only take in 37,500 asylum seekers this year.
On Thursday, amid widespread criticism of Austria, Avramopoulos sent a letter to Mikl-Leiter calling the cap “plainly incompatible with Austria’s obligations under European and international law.”
The measures have also raised fears that when migrant numbers rise as expected again in the coming months as spring arrives, there will be a dangerous backlog of people along the Balkans route from Greece northwards.
– New asylum claims –
On Friday, when the new restrictions came into effect, no single migrant entered Austria, due to bad weather.
On Saturday 396 people, many of them families and including some elderly people, entered at the main Spielfeld border crossing point with Slovenia in southern Austria, police said.
But of these only 12 applied for asylum, the others saying they wished to travel onwards to Germany and transported in army buses to migrant centres, police spokesman Wolfgang Braunsar said.
Vienna says its unilateral moves are necessary because a German-backed EU plan agreed in November for Turkey to stem the flow of migrants leaving its shores for Greece is not yet working.
The EU and Turkey are due to hold a summit on March 6 to seek to firm up their agreement, which would see migrants flown directly from Turkey and shared — in theory — around certain members of the bloc.
In return for sealing its borders, Turkey would receive several billion euros (dollars) in aid and other sweeteners including reinvigorating its drive for EU membership and easing visa restrictions.
