Migrant flow into Austria ebbs after 14,000 weekend influx

GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press

VIENNA (AP) — Calm returned Monday to the main border point between Austria and Hungary after more than 14,000 people used it over the weekend to enter Austria, but cross-border tensions continued with Hungary's leader hitting back at EU counterparts who blamed his country for the chaos.

Austrian police spokesman Helmut Marban said that no migrants had arrived at the Nickelsdorf border point since before midnight, when 260 people crossed into Austria and left shortly afterward by train to Vienna.

Beyond the Red Cross tent set up near the crossing and the stores of food, empty cots set up in a parking lot, hygiene articles and other goods stacked up for any new arrivals, there was little to indicate Monday morning that the border had served over the weekend for the dramatic influx of Syrians, Iraqis, Afghans and others fleeing war or persecution or simply seeking a better life in Germany, Austria and other prosperous EU countries.

An AP reporter counted about five vehicles driving into Austria over two minutes, and slightly fewer in the other direction. The truck lane, which was backed up after being blocked off over the weekend, was empty.

Marban said police were waiting to see whether the mass human influx resumes before formally declaring the emergency situation over. If the situation remains calm spot checks of vehicles in the search for human traffickers may resume over the coming days, he said.

Austria's government, which had opened its borders to the thousands pushing westwards, adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Chancellor Werner Faymann on Sunday announced that emergency measures to deal with asylum-seekers would be phased out "step by step," but no timetable was announced.

Faymann and other EU leaders have criticized Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, blaming him for the chaos they say left Austria and Germany no choice but to essentially open their borders for thousands of migrants and refugees who complained of neglect and human rights violations in Hungary.

Pushing back Monday, Orban mocked the European Union's efforts to distribute migrants through a quota system and cast Hungary as the EU's "black sheep" standing up against the EU leadership.

Any EU migrant quota among the bloc's 28 countries, makes no sense in a system where the free movement of people would make it impossible to enforce, he said.

Most of those crossing into Austria over the weekend proceeded by train to Germany. Austrian officials said only about 90 people asked for asylum in Austria.

In a late-night meeting lasting until early Monday in Berlin, the Germany government agreed to spend 6 billion euros ($6.6 billion) next year to support the hundreds of thousands of new arrivals. At the same time, it also agreed to introduce legal measures making it easier to deport-asylum seekers from countries considered "secure states" like Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania. Asylum-seekers will also get less cash in the future and more non-cash benefits.

German officials recently predicted that up to 800,000 migrants will arrive by the end of the year, many of them refugees fleeing war and persecution in Syria, Iraq and Eritrea.

The government's aid package will include improved housing, more federal police and language classes.

Five asylum seekers were injured in a fire early Monday in Rottenburg in southwest Germany, the German news agency dpa reported. Three of them were injured when they jumped out of the burning building, while two others had to be treated for smoke inhalation. The cause of the fire was not immediately clear.

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Associated Press writers Pablo Gorondi in Budapest and Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin contributed.