NGOs want to wake up – World Refugee Day: “Stop complaining and take action”

Lukas Gahleitner-Gertz from the “Austria Asyl Coordination” stressed that proposals are also needed on how to deal with the refugees from Ukraine when the temporary protection ends in the coming year, while at the same time highlighting the involvement of civil society. About 70 percent of those fleeing Ukraine are still privately housed. “The landlords need government support, but they are not getting it.”

Actions urgently required
Instead of “deportation rhetoric, symbolic politics and building castles in the air”, urgent measures are needed, according to the call of the joint press conference of Amnesty International, Asylum Coordination Austria, Diakonie, SOS Balkan Route, Train of Hope and Volkshilfe . Nina Andresen (Train of Hope) criticized that it was “absurd” for civil society to “compensate on a massive scale” for the government’s “system failure”. Establishing and maintaining supply structures would only have been possible thanks to the volunteers. “Without civil society, caring for the displaced from Ukraine would have been much less successful.”

For Christoph Riedl of the Diakonie, the refugees from Ukraine must be transferred to social security. Because basic care is not suitable for permanent housing and should not last longer. In general, the system of basic services should be reformed ‘total’, says Riedl. In addition, refugees need free access to the labor market, Silvia Zechmeister (Volkshilfe) argued: “With our shortage of skilled workers, this is the order of the day.” At the moment this is only allowed in exceptional cases. Because many of the asylum seekers are “extremely traumatized”, expansion of psychosocial services is urgently needed, according to Zechmeister. And in rural areas, educational opportunities and language courses need to be expanded.

Care for unaccompanied minor refugees
Appropriate care for unaccompanied minor refugees “from day one,” demanded Amnesty International’s Stephan Handl. Austria is the country where most unaccompanied children apply for asylum. Four out of five would be granted admission status in this country and be allowed to stay, Handl said: “The problem is that most of those who arrive don’t make it to that point.” More than 80 percent would disappear again. “Nobody knows what happens to these kids.” That is a “human rights declaration of bankruptcy”.

SOS Balkan Route President Petar Rosandić sharply criticized the federal government and the EU. Everyone now knows that the external border of the EU is a “law-free zone”. The recent shipping tragedy is an example of this. That there is something to be achieved together is evidenced by the current success in preventing the “illegal refugee camp Lipa near Bihać in Bosnia, built by the ÖVP-affiliated organization ICMPD based in Vienna”. There they wanted to lock people up without a verdict or legal basis. Preventing the illegal prison was a “much-needed blow”, “not only to the federal government’s neo-colonial Western Balkan policy, but also to the EU’s entire externalization policy,” Rosandić said. He criticized the fact that the ICMPD now tried to silence his NGO and him with “lawsuits”.

Politics also made itself heard – very differently
There were also calls from politicians: the Greens pleaded for courage and solidarity instead of fear mongering and isolation. “In addition to coordinated sea rescue in the Mediterranean, those seeking protection need one thing above all: legal escape routes to Europe,” argued Green National Council member Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic. The integration of refugees is the “most effective way to support them to resume their lives and to enable them to contribute to a good coexistence in our country”, emphasized SPÖ spokeswoman for global development, Petra Bayr.

The PVV is different: FPÖ leader Herbert Kickl stressed that asylum means “temporary protection” and “must not be a cover for illegal mass immigration”. That is also the intention of the Geneva Refugee Convention, which provides for this protection in the nearest, safer country, he argued. This right is a “high good” and should not be confused with illegal immigration. However, Kickl locates such attempts in the EU, the black-green federal government and countless NGOs: “Truly persecuted people who seek protection and are not placed in economically strong countries with a well-developed social system, such as Austria, for a better life. travel through a large number of safe countries made invisible.” Kickl once again underlined the liberal demand for a “Fortress Austria” and the immediate suspension of the right to asylum. Because Austria is only surrounded by safe states.