“Immediate checks” – FP Tirol demands “No option instead of highway on the Brenner”

“The so-called border management there needs to be stepped up. It needs to be checked. Better controls on trains are also needed. No alternative instead of the Brenner motorway,” Abwerzger told the APA. However, the veiled search on the Austrian-Italian border that Nehammer ventilated would not be sufficient, De Blauwe explained. For the time being, there should be no “full checks” at the Brenner, in the sense that every car is examined, but things should “move in the direction of border controls”, demanded the chairman of the FPÖ state party.

Germany as an example
Abwerzger also gave another example: “Germany has also been carrying out border controls on the Walserberg for years.” There is ongoing talk that “border management” at the Brenner border can be ramped up “at the push of a button” – now that this can be proven, Abwerzger said. The €8.6 million “border management centre” under construction at the Brenner Pass is expected to be completed in the autumn. Until now we have been working with a “container solution”.

It can be assumed that the situation in Lampedusa will “deteriorate dramatically” in the coming days.

“Don’t abandon Italy”
According to the Tyrolean FPÖ chairman, people would be allowed to the mainland and then probably head north: “It’s only a matter of time.” First of all, they’re just young men again, Abwerzger said. Immediate ‘pushbacks’ and an ‘Australia-style sea closure’ are needed in Lampedusa. The boats or ships should be sent back to where they came from. After all, it is technically easy to determine where they originally come from, Abwerzger emphasized. Italy must not be abandoned, but the government of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is also being “challenged”.

Abwerzger holds the state government responsible
Abwerzger also saw that the black and red Tyrolean state government had a duty. Governor Anton Mattle (ÖVP) must “wake up from his lethargy” and put pressure on his party friends in Vienna regarding border controls. And the SPÖ deputy governor, Georg Dornauer, who is responsible for the country’s refugee system, is confronted with the ‘moose test’: ‘Instead of constantly worrying about finding a hostel for migrants, he can now prove how serious he actually is with his restrictive migration policy propagated.”