Austrian-Slovak Border Controls Prolonged Until November 2.
In a bid to halt the further increase of irregular migrants, authorities in Austria have decided to extend the controls at their border with Slovakia until November 2 at least.
A similar measure was also confirmed by Czechia and Poland.
In a coordinated move, these three states introduced controls at the border with Slovakia on October 4, while the decision was initially set to remain effective until October 13.
But, the measures started to bring positive results in these countries’ fight against irregular migration. In addition, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration of Poland, Maciej Wąsik, said that the migration situation in Poland has improved as a result of the introduced frontier checks.
It was a relatively quiet week on the border with Slovakia. It seems that the introduction of border control itself improved the migration situation. We had few situations that could be called so dynamic – there were two pursuit situations.
The Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and Administration said that irregular border crossing attempts are not a local but a European problem, emphasizing that these people are waiting for the situation to change or maybe they are looking for new ways.
However, Slovakia’s Prime Minister, Ludovit Odor, criticized such a decision stressing that it is necessary to find a Europe-wide solution to the problem of migrants.
Despite this criticism, authorities in Slovakia also initiated controls on their borders with Hungary over migrant situation concerns.
Besides, such a measure introduced on October 5, which was initially set to remain effective until October, has been extended until November 3, at least.
The new decision was confirmed through a statement provided by the government of Slovakia.
Given the problem with illegal migration continues …, it is proposed to continuously extend the temporary renewal of internal border controls with Hungary from October 15 to November 3, 2023.
The data provided by the government of Slovakia revealed that the number of migrants attempting to reach the country marked an eleven-fold increase to nearly 4,000 this year.
Authorities in Slovakia have registered many migrants reaching this territory, mainly from Serbia via Hungary and heading to other wealthier European countries.
Slovakian authorities saw a total of 24,500 unlawful migrants attempting to reach this country for a period from January until August this year, in comparison to 10900 registered throughout last year.
