The fact that Austria blocked the admission of Romania and Bulgaria (in the Bulgarian case together with the Netherlands) to the Schengen area brought a lot of criticism to the government in Vienna in Europe.

Romania has recalled its ambassador in Vienna for consultations, an unusual step among partner countries.

Most recently, it was said that the ambassador would not return any time soon, at least not before Austria made representations in Bucharest on the matter of the Schengen expansion.

Stephen Lowenstein

Political correspondent based in Vienna.

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Domestically, the government's position met with criticism from the left-wing and liberal opposition.

But the Green coalition partner is also increasingly breaking away from the Christian Democratic Chancellor's Party ÖVP.

Interior Minister Gerhard Karner (ÖVP) had vetoed the Schengen extension (except in the case of Croatia) at the EU Council of Ministers in early December, Chancellor Karl Nehammer and other ÖVP government members defended this as a "call for help" that was not directed against the two countries, but on the need for reform of the Schengen system.

In contrast, the Greens chairman and vice chancellor Werner Kogler said in an interview published in the “Kleine Zeitung” at Christmas that there are objective problems in the area of ​​migration, but these only have a marginal connection to Schengen.

Hungary refers to new "border hunters" troops

Kogler said it was his goal to include Romania and Bulgaria in the Schengen zone next year.

Because the undeniable problems with illegal migration via south-eastern Europe do not lie with them, but with Hungary.

"If we were to stick to the Interior Minister's logic, then Hungary would have to be thrown out of Schengen, because that's where most of the non-registered transfers to Austria take place." have not been previously registered”.

Hungary has erected a fence on the border with Serbia since 2015 and has now deployed a border guard force notorious for its crackdown.

However, the considerably longer border between Hungary and Romania is not protected by a fence.

Hungary forms the external Schengen border with these two countries.

However, because the government in Budapest has switched to not accepting any asylum applications in its own country, no registration takes place either.

Migrants who climb over the fence and are picked up near the border are pushed back.

Inland, however, this rarely happens.

It would also no longer be easy to determine there whether the person in question came via Serbia or Romania, for example.

"250,000 attempts at illegal border crossings foiled"

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán recently said at a press conference that 250,000 attempts to illegally cross the border in his country had been foiled.

When asked by the FAZ whether the high number of migrants arriving in Austria indicated a policy of waving away from the border fence, Orbán said no: In Hungary alone, 2,500 people smugglers had been caught and sentenced to prison terms.

The fence is "not perfect", but the situation is still very different from 2015, when hundreds of thousands "marched" west via Budapest.

He referred to the "border hunters" set up by Hungary, which represented a new quality of border security.

Croatia's accession to the Schengen area represents progress, because Hungary can withdraw emergency services from the Croatian border and also send them to the Serbian one.

Thirdly, Hungary - together with Austria - wants to support Serbia even more in its own border protection with North Macedonia and Bulgaria.

To this end, a third Austro-Hungarian-Serbian summit should take place in Vienna "soon".

Austrian Chancellor Nehammer has advocated using EU funds to support the construction of "physical barriers", i.e. border fences, for example in Bulgaria.

Hungary has been demanding this for years, but the EU Commission has so far rejected it.

The Austrian Minister for Europe, Karoline Edtstadler (ÖVP), said, referring to the "difficult border" between Bulgaria and Turkey, that she sees a rethink in the Commission.