Anti-immigration club

Austria spearheaded an initiative of seven EU members to crack down on illegal immigration along Greece’s border with Turkey.

At a conference of EU interior ministers in early March, the group presented proposals to give the EU greater control over Greece’s external border – which they say is under-policed – and negotiate a re-patriation deal for illegal immigrants with Turkey.

Along with Austria, the coalition included Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, and Sweden – countries that together received 75% of the EU’s asylum applications "because people especially enjoy living there in the long-term," Austria’s Interior Minister, Johanna Mikl Leitner, stated in a press release.