Migrants walk at a platform at Viennas Westbahnhof train station on September 6, 2015. (AFP photo)
Vienna/Munich:
Austria said on Sunday it planned to end emergency measures that have allowed thousands of refugees stranded in Hungary to stream into Austria and Germany since Saturday morning.
Austria had suspended its random border checks after photographs of a Syrian toddler lying dead on a Turkish beach showed Europeans the horror faced by those desperate enough to travel illegally into the heart of Europe, which is deeply divided over how to cope.
After 71 people suffocated in the back of a truck abandoned on an Austrian highway en route from Hungary, and as thousands headed from Budapest towards Austria on foot, Vienna had agreed with Germany to waive rules requiring refugees to register an asylum claim in the first EU country they reach.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said that decision was being revised following "intensive talks" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, bitterly opposed to the waiver.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation," Mr Faymann said.
"Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
Hungary laid on over 100 buses to the border on Saturday night after Austria said it had agreed the emergency measures, to the relief of thousands of migrants and refugees stranded in Budapest after travelling through the Balkans and Greece, many of them fleeing civil war in Syria.
Others set off from the station to make the 170 km (110 mile) journey on foot. The platforms filled up again on Sunday.
Germany has said it expects to receive 800,000 refugees and migrants this year, and urged EU members to open their doors.
But Hungary, the main entry point for migrants into Europe's borderless Schengen zone, has taken a hard line, vowing to seal its southern frontier with a new, high fence by September 15.
Austria had suspended its random border checks after photographs of a Syrian toddler lying dead on a Turkish beach showed Europeans the horror faced by those desperate enough to travel illegally into the heart of Europe, which is deeply divided over how to cope.
After 71 people suffocated in the back of a truck abandoned on an Austrian highway en route from Hungary, and as thousands headed from Budapest towards Austria on foot, Vienna had agreed with Germany to waive rules requiring refugees to register an asylum claim in the first EU country they reach.
Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said that decision was being revised following "intensive talks" with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a telephone call with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, bitterly opposed to the waiver.
"We have always said this is an emergency situation in which we must act quickly and humanely. We have helped more than 12,000 people in an acute situation," Mr Faymann said.
"Now we have to move step-by-step away from emergency measures towards normality, in conformity with the law and dignity."
Hungary laid on over 100 buses to the border on Saturday night after Austria said it had agreed the emergency measures, to the relief of thousands of migrants and refugees stranded in Budapest after travelling through the Balkans and Greece, many of them fleeing civil war in Syria.
Others set off from the station to make the 170 km (110 mile) journey on foot. The platforms filled up again on Sunday.
Germany has said it expects to receive 800,000 refugees and migrants this year, and urged EU members to open their doors.
But Hungary, the main entry point for migrants into Europe's borderless Schengen zone, has taken a hard line, vowing to seal its southern frontier with a new, high fence by September 15.
© Thomson Reuters 2015
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