Janez Janša has been tweeting her fingers sore for days. His message, in the version from Sunday: “The EU will not open any European 'humanitarian' or migration corridors to Afghanistan. We will not allow the strategic mistake of 2015 to be repeated. ”Therefore, only people who have worked directly for NATO and the EU will be helped. The national-conservative Slovenian head of government decided to speak for the entire Union - the country currently holds the semi-annual rotating chairmanship of the councils of ministers. In fact, only two countries supported his position: Austria and Hungary. Most other states and the top of the EU institutions want to prevent a wave of migration like 2015. But they take the group of those in need of protection wider,speak of moral responsibility and insist on commitments for resettlement programs.

Thomas Gutschker

Political correspondent for the European Union, NATO and the Benelux countries based in Brussels.

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Stephan Löwenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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The President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, openly opposed the Slovenian on Sunday: “It is not up to the Council Presidency to say what the European Union will do,” said the Italian, himself a social democrat. It is clear that “we now have to show solidarity”. During her visit to a reception center for Afghan local EU workers in Spain, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen demanded that those in need of protection “have to be offered legal and safe routes”, globally, organized by the international community. "The resettlement of vulnerable people is of great importance, it is our moral duty." She also named people who are in "imminent danger" such as journalists and human rights activists.It is a central task for the G-7 switching conference this Tuesday, in which von der Leyen will participate.

Slovenia opposes meetings of interior ministers

The EU wanted to fly 230 people, local workers and their family members, from Kabul during the course of Monday. They are first taken to an air force base near Madrid and distributed from there. In Brussels it was said that almost all Member States had offered places for the total of 400 people, including Slovenia, but not Hungary and Austria. The member states would have to advise on expanding the group of those in need of protection. As officials and diplomats reported, the Slovenian Council Presidency is opposed to a meeting of interior ministers, as suggested by the German head of department Horst Seehofer (CSU). Last week, the Slovenes limited a video conference to problems on the border with Belarus, which led to resentment among some states and the Commission.

This is one of the reasons why the Commission is now using another tool, the so-called “Blueprint Network”, a self-managed committee for coordination and exchange of information. However, it only meets at official level. The responsible interior commissioner, Ylva Johansson, appealed to the states last week to offer more places for the resettlement of Afghans. Women and girls in particular are in a “particularly dangerous situation”. At the same time, she made it clear that the EU must prevent people from reaching Europe via unsafe and irregular routes controlled by smugglers.

In Austria, the stance of the Christian Democratic Chancellor party ÖVP not to accept any additional Afghan refugees is putting pressure on the smaller coalition partner in the “turquoise-green” government.

The Green leadership in Vienna made their opposite position clear on Monday in a statement that was published by the Austria Press Agency, but without questioning their participation in the government.

They are in favor of a "Europe-wide initiative for the humanitarian admission of refugees".

Austria must provide the necessary resources for this.

ÖVP politicians criticize Brussels

The resignation of a former Viennese state chairman of the Greens, who negotiated the turquoise-green coalition agreement in 2019, testifies to pressure within the party. This de facto enshrines the principle that the ÖVP can pull its hard line against migration. In a summer interview at the weekend, Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz confirmed his view that Austria should not “take in more people”, “that will not happen under my Chancellorship”.

At the same time, ÖVP politicians sharply criticized the European Commission for its calls to take in Afghan refugees, for which the EU wants to provide additional financial aid. Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer said that he was “shocked” that the commission was “constantly sending out the wrong messages”. Bringing “thousands upon thousands” of Afghans to Europe would not be a solution, but rather a “very short-sighted and ideologically misguided policy” that is dangerous for Europe. Nehammer and Kurz found that Afghan asylum seekers were "particularly difficult" to integrate. In July, a heated domestic political debate was sparked off by the fact that four Afghans, some of whom had previously committed criminal offenses, are suspected of raping and killing a young person in Vienna.The ÖVP also points out that in a European comparison Austria is only surpassed by Sweden in terms of the admission of asylum seekers since 2015 relative to the population.