Austria’s Conservative-Nationalist Coalition to Impose ‘Sanctions’ on Migrants Who Refuse to Integrate

by Jack Montgomery

Austria’s new conservative-nationalist coalition is set to get tough on illegal migration and migrants who refuse to integrate into Austrian society.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz has recast the conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) to be more responsive to public concerns about the migrant crisis, while his coalition partners in Heinz-Christian Strache’s nationalist-populist Freedom Party (FPÖ) have always favoured a robust response.

Migrants “refusing to integrate” can expect “sanctions” as the coalition’s programme takes shape, with reports suggesting support payments for migrants who are not seen to be making an effort to respect their hosts will be cut, while migrants who adopt Austrian cultural norms are rewarded with an “integration bonus”.

A mutual commitment to “fighting political Islam” is a key policy in the ÖVP-FPÖ coalition agreement, perhaps made more imperative by news that the placement of Muslim children in Salafist kindergartens is creating parallel societies, with the southern city of Graz having become something of an extremist stronghold.

The youthful chancellor explained why he was pursuing this tough new agenda for English-speaking observers in an article for TIME magazine.

“At the height of the migration crisis which hit Europe in 2015, a photograph circulated in social media showing a lone policeman standing arms across trying to block a country-road near the Austrian border while hundreds of migrants passed by him on both sides of the road,” recalled the 31-year-old.

“For me this picture was paradigmatic of the crisis: the sense of a loss of control and of being overwhelmed,” he explained.

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