The high-flying FPÖ Austrian opposition party has accused the country’s interior minister of attempting to hoodwink the electorate over claims asylum applications are falling across the country.
The Austrian Interior Ministry, led by ÖVP Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, recently announced that asylum applications in January fell by 40 percent compared to the previous month and hailed the government for tackling an issue growing in importance among the Austrian population.
FPÖ security spokesman Hannes Amesbauer, however, believes this is a half-truth designed to hide the stark reality of the asylum crisis from the Austrian voters. He accused Karner of being more interested in flying to different countries to talk about the immigration issue than he is in tackling the problem.
“Back from Athens, throwing sand in the eyes of the Austrian population over the weekend about the number of asylum seekers, and back on the plane to Morocco on Monday,” Amesbauer told the Austria Press Agency.
“The ÖVP fairy tale of easing illegal mass immigration, which the interior minister, who is in permanent jet lag, is spreading, is simply wrong.”
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He explained that when comparing January’s figures to the same period over the last 10 years, there remains a dramatic upturn in the number of asylum applications.
“On a 10-year average, 2,714 asylum applications were made in Austria in January. This means that this year’s January figures exceeded the long-term average by 58 percent,” he revealed.
“The asylum numbers are still far too high! The urgently needed paradigm shift will only happen with the FPÖ. It needs an interior minister who assumes his responsibility, removes Austria as an attractive place for asylum, and implements real border protection against illegal immigrants from all over the world,” the FPÖ security spokesperson added.
Instead, Austria has an interior minister “who traipses around the world every week and wants to shift his own responsibility to Brussels,” Amesbauer said of Karner.
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“If the Black-Green government and Interior Minister Karner continue their total failure this year, as is unfortunately to be expected, then a new sad record in illegal mass immigration is imminent in 2023.
“This must be prevented at all costs. Because the citizens pay the bill for this Black-Green ‘open borders’ policy, with their security and their tax money,” he added.
The FPÖ has soared in popularity in recent months and the latest polls placed the opposition party in first place across the country for the first time in seven years. The party, known for its hard-line stance on immigration, nearly doubled its vote share in state elections in Lower Austria last month, and it has ramped up its rhetoric against the government ever since in preparation for parliamentary elections expected to be held next year.
