"SCHENGEN": GOVERNMENT PRESSES FOR EARLY MEMBERSHIP
The Austrian Interior Minister, Franz Löschnak, has declared that his government intends to swiftly accede to the Schengen Treaty, following the country's vote for membership of the EU.
A large majority of parliament is likely to approve the minister's intentions. The only party opposed to the Schengen Treaty are the Greens. Their federal spokesperson, Peter Pilz, has warned against a "European policing system" that threatened to "definitively crush civil liberties and human rights". As a member of the Schengen group, Austria will play a key role in keeping away refugees from the Western European "frontier of wealth", he said.
Pilz demanded a public debate on "whether we are willing to participate in sealing off the Austrian external EU border by military means, and paying a very high price in human terms".
Interior Minister Löschnak labelled the Green warnings as "nonsense". Technically improved border controls were necessary in any case and in the country's very own interest, he said, as other EU member states would otherwise return illegal immigrants who entered the EU territory via Austria, back to Austria.
German pressure
German pressure seems to have contributed to the government's hurry to accede to the Schengen Treaty. Only recently, the German Interior Minister, Manfred Kanther, publicly criticised the allegedly insufficient control at Austria's southeastern border. Kanther suggested that illegal immigrants heading for Germany were using this loophole. Kanther threatened to maintain German checks at the Austro-German border even after Austria's accession to EU membership, if appropriate measures were not taken by the Austrian authorities.
According to Minister Löschnak, it will take three years until Austrian border control complies with these requirements.
[Ironically, in 1992, Austria surprisingly backed down on plans to join the Schengen group with arguments very similar to the recent German complaints. At that time, Austria pointed at Italy's, its own southern neighbour's, "lax" border control policies that would enable illegal immigrants to easily enter Austria, once border checks at the Austro-Italian border were abolished in compliance with the Schengen Treaty.]
Source: Salzburger Nachrichten, 20.7.94; see also FECL No.5, p.4; FECL No.6, p.7.