Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl slammed German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her decision in 2015 to welcome migrants, saying it was a “pull factor”, and praised Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for working to secure the European border.
The new minister, who was nominated by the anti-mass migration Freedom Party (FPÖ) but is officially an independent, has been a vocal critic of pro-mass migration policies since the 2015 crisis. Ms. Kneissl said that the European Union needs “comprehensive reform of the entire asylum system and border management”, in an interviewwith German magazine Der Spiegel.
According to Kneissl, EU member states should be looking to Prime Minister Orbán and his work on preventing illegal migration and who she said was correct for wanting to tighten the borders.