Image copyright Reuters Image caption Sebastian Kurz has previously vowed to shut down migrant routes to Europe

Austria's coalition government has unveiled plans to cut benefit payments for immigrants, including refugees, in a move aimed at deterring new arrivals.

The main benefit payment will be capped at €563 ($655; £492) a month, rising to match the amount Austrians receive - €863 - if they pass a German test.

Immigrants will also be barred from claiming such benefits for five years.

Conservative Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, in government with the far right, has vowed a hard line on immigration.

Mr Kurz campaigned in last year's parliamentary election with pledges to cap benefits for refugees and to shut down migrant routes to Europe.

"The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit," Mr Kurz told a news conference on Monday.

"That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit," he added.

However Monday's announcement brings Austria into conflict with the rest of the European Union, because EU rules on freedom of establishment require all member states' citizens to be treated equally.

Austria's coalition government between the conservative People's Party and the far-right Freedom Party was approved in December after elections on 15 October failed to yield a conclusive result.

The parties' election campaigns were dominated by Europe's migration crisis, something the anti-immigration Freedom Party has long campaigned on.

In 2015, at the height of Europe's migrant crisis, more than 90,000 people applied for asylum in Austria, more than 1% of the country's population.

Initially the refugees were welcomed, but the mood in the country quickly changed. </s> Austria's right wing coalition government on Monday doubled down on plans to cut benefits for foreigners including refugees, risking fresh legal challenges and opposition from the rest of the European Union.

VIENNA: Austria's right wing coalition government on Monday doubled down on plans to cut benefits for foreigners including refugees, risking fresh legal challenges and opposition from the rest of the European Union.

Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservatives, in government with the far right, won last year's parliamentary election with a hard line on immigration, pledging not to allow a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis in which Austria took in one of the biggest shares of asylum seekers in Europe. They see benefit cuts for new arrivals as a deterrent.

In March the Constitutional Court struck down a local model for the government's planned benefit reform, which required anyone claiming the main minimum benefit to have lived in Austria for five of the last six years. That system also reduced refugees' benefits for an initial five years.

Following that ruling, the cabinet unveiled its modified plan on Monday, which would cap single refugees' main benefit payment at 563 euros (US$656) a month, rising to the 863 euros available to Austrians if the refugees pass a German test.

"The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit," Kurz told a news conference. "That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit."

That raises the question of whether the new plan will also be blocked by the Constitutional Court, which ruled that refugees must be treated better than other foreigners since by definition they cannot return to their home countries.

But while the rules that were struck down did not distinguish between citizens of other European Union countries and Austrians, the new plan bars all foreigners from claiming the main benefit for five years.

That sets Austria on a collision course with Brussels and other EU member states, where EU rules on freedom of establishment are widely believed to require that all member states' citizens be treated equally.

"Freedom of establishment is the freedom to work in all of Europe. Freedom of establishment is not the freedom to seek out the best social benefits system and in that sense this waiting period is in my opinion a step in the right direction," Kurz said.

Kurz said it was "frightening" that most people on the minimum welfare payment are in Vienna and roughly half of those are foreign citizens. But when asked if the new plans were legal, he said that would be decided elsewhere.

"We are not the Constitutional Court," he said. </s> The government plans to cap refugees’ main benefit payment at 563 euros a month, rising to the 863 euros available to Austrian citizens if they pass a language test.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said: "The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit. That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit."

Immigrants will also be barred from claiming such benefits for five years, a move that goes against EU rules that all member states' citizens be treated equally.

Kurz's People’s Party won last year's parliamentary election with a hard line on immigration, pledging not to allow a repeat of the 2015 migration crisis. </s> The Austrian government has announced plans to cut benefit payments for migrants and asylum-seekers who do not speak German for their first five years in the country.

Led by right-wing Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, the coalition proposes to give more than 50 percent higher benefits to individuals who can pass a German-language test.

The plan outlines payments at 563 euros ($656) per month for non-German speakers and 863 euros ($1000) for those who pass the test.

"The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit. That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit," Kurz told a news conference.

In March, the Constitutional Court blocked a reform bill pushing for main minimum benefit to be provided only to those who had resided in Austria for five of the past six years.

"Freedom of establishment is the freedom to work in all of Europe. Freedom of establishment is not the freedom to seek out the best social benefits system and in that sense this waiting period is in my opinion a step in the right direction," Kurz said.

In an interview with German daily Welt am Sonntag published Sunday, Kurz said European Union (EU) border patrol guards should be deployed to Africa to block migrants from landing on European shores. Kurz also said refugee quotas distributing migrants throughout the EU were unrealistic.

In April, the Austrian cabinet approved measures to force asylum seekers to hand over their mobile phones and pay up to 840 euros ($1,040) in cash to the authorities during their application process, to verify their origins and routes they had taken. The measures also meant refugees will only be able to apply for Austrian citizenship after 10 years, as opposed to six previously, and sped up deportation process for those who committed crimes, even children.

Austria received more than 150,000 asylum applications -- almost 2 percent of its total population of 8.7 million -- following the migration crisis of 2015.

In the parliamentary election of October 2017, Kurtz and his center-right Austrian People's Party (OeVP) put the crackdown on immigration as one of their main platform keystones. </s> Austria’s right-wing coalition has announced its modified plans to cut benefit payments for foreigners, including asylum-seekers, who don’t speak German for five years.

“The fundamental rule we will introduce is that German will become the key to accessing the full minimum benefit. That means that whoever has insufficient language skills will not be able to claim the full minimum benefit,” Chancellor Kurz told a press conference.

According to the plan, the pay would be capped at 563 euros ($656) per month, and would increase to 863 euros ($1000) a month if an individual passes a German-language test.

“Freedom of establishment is the freedom to work in all of Europe. Freedom of establishment is not the freedom to seek out the best social benefits system and in that sense this waiting period is in my opinion a step in the right direction,” Kurz said, referring to the government’s previous benefit reform, stipulating that anyone claiming the main minimum benefit must have lived in Austria for five of the last six years, which was blocked by the Constitutional Court in March.

Earlier this week, in an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Kurz suggested that the EU’s border patrol guards be deployed to Africa to stem illegal migration flows to Europe. The Chancellor said that he was concerned that EU refugee quotas to distribute migrants around the member-states were unrealistic.

READ MORE: Merkel, Kurz Clash Over Refugees During First Meeting in Berlin

In April, Kurz’s government proposed harsher measures against asylum-seekers, including seizing their phones to check their identity, crime record and determine the country of origin. The bill also included quicker deportations for those who commit crimes, even children; perpetrators are supposed to be sent to detention centers for deportation after they serve sentences.

During his election campaign in October 2017, Kurz put the fight against illegal migration high on the agenda; as a result his Austrian People’s Party (OVP) won the support of 31.5 percent of voters in snap parliamentary elections. Kurz was sworn-in as chancellor when OVP reached a consensus with Heinz-Christian Strache’s right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) on the formation of a coalition government. </s> Austria deployed police, soldiers and Black Hawk military helicopters yesterday in an exercise overseen by the far-right interior minister which enacted the arrival of hundreds of migrants on its border with Slovenia.

Austria deployed police, soldiers and Black Hawk military helicopters yesterday in an exercise overseen by the far-right interior minister which enacted the arrival of hundreds of migrants on its border with Slovenia.

The drill, designed to show Austria's preparedness for any repeat of Europe's migration crisis, dovetailed with the right-wing government's efforts to discourage migrants from setting off to find a home in central Europe.

Austria took in more than 1pc of its population in asylum seekers during the 2015-2016 migration crisis, and Chancellor Sebastian Kurz's conservatives won last year's election pledging to prevent a repeat of that influx. They govern in coalition with the far-right Freedom Party. "A state that in the worst case cannot protect its borders loses its credibility," Interior Minister Herbert Kickl of the Freedom Party said.

"I am determined that events like those of 2015 must not occur again. And that is exactly the message we want to send from here." But neighbouring Slovenia said the drill exaggerated the risk of another influx.

"The exercise is not needed. I see it even as a little provocative," Slovenian Prime Minister Miro Cerar said. The exercise was carried out at Spielfeld, a crossing where Austria set up a large crowd-management system in early 2016 designed to handle up to 11,000 people a day, only for the number of arrivals to collapse soon afterwards.

In contrast to a smaller exercise held under the previous government, yesterday's drill did not involve migrants being violent or any arrests. But five military helicopters, including two Black Hawks, hovered overhead. Two hundred trainee police officers acted the part of migrants.

Migration has returned to the top of the political agenda in Europe after the Bavarian sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats last week gave her an ultimatum to broker a European immigration deal. The issue threatens to wreck her coalition government.

After meeting Germany's Bavarian interior minister this month, Mr Kurz called for an "axis of the willing" on illegal immigration including Italy, where the far right is also in government. He is pushing for the European Union to set up centres outside its territory where asylum claims can be processed. He also wants migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to be taken back to Africa rather than transported to Europe. </s> After a week-long standoff, an aid ship carrying 234 migrants docked Wednesday in Malta, as seven fellow European Union countries have agreed to share acceptance of the refugees with the tiny island nation.

Malta, along with Italy, Ireland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal reached an agreement to split the refugees amongst them. The ship rescued the refugees of the coast of Libya this past Thursday, before becoming stranded Friday in the Mediterranean Sea as negotiations over accepting the refugees stalled.

The ship, known as the Lifeline, was operated by German aid group Mission Lifeline. It had earlier been shut out of Italian ports; Matteo Salvini, Italian interior minister and member of the far-right Liga party, had previously told his E.U. colleagues he would not let the country be a “refugee camp.”

According to the Associated Press, Salvini said further private rescue vessels would no longer be welcome, as they “cannot dictate Italy’s immigration policy.”

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said Wednesday the country would vet the migrants to determine if they are refugees or economic migrants — the former group to be resettled, the latter group to be returned to their home countries, Muscat said.

Muscat said the captain of the ship also would be questioned, alleging that he had ignored instructions from the Italian government. A spokesperson for Sea Watch, an organization helping coordinate the Lifeline mission, disputed Muscat’s claim.

Absent from the agreement was E.U. heavyweight Germany. Immigration has become a divisive issue in the nation; a million refugees have entered the country since 2015, the Associated Press reported.

Longtime Chancellor Angela Merkel has seen her ruling coalition at risk of collapse over the issue in recent months. German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, a member of the conservative Christian Social Union, has broken with Merkel on her open-door refugee policy, having advocated to turn away refugees.

Merkel is a member of the more center-right Christian Democratic Party, currently in control of the German government in coalition with the CSU and the Social Democratic Party.

On Thursday and Friday, E.U. leaders will participate in a summit in Brussels to discuss further management of migration. Members of the CSU have warned that if Merkel does not come out of the summit with a concrete solution, the coalition could fracture.

“I do not understand talking about possible future solutions for Europe while not being prepared to do what Germany can do now,” said Alexander Dobrindt, the CSU’s parliamentary leader, according to Politico. “We need to act now.” </s> Austria today staged a dramatic border protection exercise as it prepares to assume the EU presidency and push for hardline immigration measures as the bloc is gripped by increasingly bitter divisions over the migrant crisis.

Austrian leader Sebastian Kurz will assume the EU's rotating presidency on July 1 and has vowed to make migrants claim asylum before entering the bloc.

That policy echoes the position of Italy, which has started turning away migrant vessels and proposed setting up processing centres in Libya and other countries of origin.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also locked in a struggle with her hardline government coalition partners that threatens to topple her government, and a summit between EU leaders on Sunday made little progress on tackling the crisis.

Kurz fears if Germany unilaterally closes its southern border then other EU nations will follow suit.

Today heavily armed policemen - wearing helmets and body armour while carrying riot shields - were on display to show Germany that Austria is willing to shut its own borders if Merkel's interior minister follows through with his threat to close the Bavarian frontier.

Thousands of migrants poured through Europe's open borders daily three years ago, triggering a humanitarian and political crisis that has left deep divisions on the continent.

But relatively few migrants pass through the Austria-Slovenia frontier near the town of Spielfeld today, where the exercises were held.

Speaking to German daily Bild, Austrian Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache said his country was testing out its new 'Puma police border protection unit' for the first time.

He added: 'We want to prepare ourselves for all developments and send a clear signal that there will no longer be a loss of control and free passage like in 2015.

'The reasons for this are the debate about intra-European border closures, triggered by Germany, as well as current developments on the refugee routes in the Balkans.'

It comes after more than half of the EU's leaders met in Brussels on Sunday to grapple with a resurgent political crisis over migration that threatens to tear the bloc apart.

With police dogs and armoured vehicles, the Austrians today stood in front of a fence as actors - police cadets - posed as migrants during the drill.

Chancellor Kurz said at the weekend that he would 'be ready and do everything necessary to protect our borders' if Horst Seehofer, Germany's interior minister, goes ahead with plans to protect his country's southern frontier.

He added: 'That would mean securing the border on the Brenner [Pass] and other locations... [though] I want to help ensure it doesn't get that far.'

That dispute within the German coalition has prompted worries within the EU that there will be a domino effect of member nations tightening their borders.

Seehofer is allied with Austria's Kurz, whose country on July 1 takes over from Bulgaria the six-month rotating EU presidency.

Today, meanwhile, Italy's deputy prime minister said its coastguard and navy should ignore SOS calls from migrant boats in the Mediterranean.

Matteo Salvini has already warned foreign charities to stop picking up migrants off Libya, accusing them of 'causing trouble' and saying Italian ports 'are and will be closed to those who aid human traffickers.'

Salvini, also the country's interior minister, made the comments after a surprise visit to Libya, a key departure point for thousands of migrants making the dangerous crossing to Europe.

On his return to Rome, he was asked for his views on reported plans for Italian maritime authorities to ignore SOS calls made by migrant vessels in the Mediterranean.

He said of the proposals - reportedly being considered by the minister of transport - that 'if that was the decision, it would have my full support' adding that Libya's coastguard authorities was capable of marshalling its own coastline.

It comes as hundreds of migrants remained stranded at sea in the Mediterranean, deepening a crisis shaking Europe.

In Tripoli, Salvini called for the establishment of processing centres in various unnamed African countries to deal with potential migrants in a move 'to help Libya as well as Italy block migration'.

Libya is a key departure point for thousands of migrants hoping to reach Europe, although hundreds drown each year attempting the crossing.

Salvini's unexpected trip came a day after emergency talks between 16 European Union leaders in a bid to break a longstanding deadlock over who should take in the migrants, the bulk of whom have been landing in Italy and Greece.

The crisis came to a head earlier this month when Italy's new populist government turned away a rescue boat carrying 630 people, which was also rejected by Malta, forcing the vessel to remain at sea until Spain offered them safe haven.

But the relief was short-lived, with Italy and Malta refusing a second vessel carrying 234 migrants who were rescued on Thursday.

The move left Germany-operated rescue boat Lifeline stranded in international waters near Malta.

'Let's see if Europe remembers that it actually exists because there is still a boat loaded with migrants in Maltese waters waiting for a port to welcome it and we can tell you again, it won't be in an Italian port,' Salvini said.

Austria has suggested that Albania could be used to process illegal migrants outside of the EU before sending them 'back to their countries of origin as soon as possible'.

Chancellor Kurz confirmed Austria is working with Denmark and other countries to work out a solution to the migration crisis involving non-EU members.

Under the so-called Dublin rules, asylum-seekers must be processed in the country where they first arrive, often Mediterranean countries like Italy, Greece and Spain.

EU leaders last December had set the end of June as a deadline to reform the rules by establishing a permanent mechanism to relocate asylum-seekers throughout the bloc.

With such reform elusive, Merkel is now pushing for bilateral, trilateral and multilateral deals.

Merkel also got Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to attend the mini-summit by telling him pre-written conclusions had been withdrawn, Italian officials said.

Draft conclusions included calls to speed up returns to countries tasked with processing them, such as Italy.

Rome on Saturday accused French President Emmanuel Macron of 'arrogance' for turning back migrants at the French-Italian border.

Ahmed Maiteeq, deputy head of the Government of National Accord (GNA), said Libya would host a migration summit in September.

Earlier, he told Italy's La Repubblica daily that Europe 'must think of structural measures to take in African countries to stop migrants.'

On his return to Rome, Salvini said a technical team would be set up this week with representatives from Italy, Niger, Chad and Mali.

He dismissed calls by France and Spain for asylum-seekers to be kept in closed centres until their claims are processed - a proposal Rome fears would turn Italy into 'a refugee camp for all of Europe'.

'Welcome hotspots in Italy? It would be a problem for us and for Libya itself because it would not stop these deadly waves (of migration). We have proposed reception centres south of Libya to avoid Tripoli becoming a funnel, like Italy,' he wrote on Twitter.

'The only way to really counteract the traffickers' criminal interests and avoid these voyages of death is to stop these boats putting out to sea,' he added in a separate statement.

The crisis has seen France's Emmanuel Macron accusing Rome of 'irresponsibility' for turning away the boats, and Italy denouncing Paris for its hypocrisy in pushing migrants back across their shared border.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an ultimatum from her hardline interior minister who has given her until the end of June to find a European deal to curb new arrivals.

Sunday's emergency EU leaders meeting had aimed to clear the air between member states ahead of a scheduled full summit on Thursday and Friday.

Both Macron and Merkel have vowed to forge ahead with like-minded leaders on ways to reduce migrant flows, but the EU's top migration official warned that Europe would solve the crisis only by working together.

'We must find a way to adopt a shared policy and a shared strategy to face this situation, otherwise the European project is in danger,' Dimitris Avramopoulos told AFP on a visit to Tehran. </s> Questions around Europe’s handling of migration and asylum applications continued to cause a political headache on Sunday night as the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, sought to calm tensions with conservative allies inside her coalition government.

After the European Union last week hammered out a vague accord on migration, promising to set up secure centres to process the asylum claims of people rescued in the Mediterranean, Merkel drew up her own raft of measures to tighten controls on the influx of migrants to Germany and presented it to her sceptical coalition partners, the conservative Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU).

Germany’s coalition government is under immense strain, after the hardline interior minister Horst Seehofer – also leader of the CSU – threatened to turn away any asylum claimants already registered in another EU country, unless Merkel came up with a solution by Sunday night.

But after Merkel set out fresh German migration measures to calm the row, Seehofer reportedly voiced his dissatisfaction with Merkel’s deal in a closed meeting with fellow CSU party leaders on Sunday afternoon.

The interior minister complained in Munich that he had engaged Merkel in a “conversation with no effect” about his plan to turn away asylum seekers already registered in other EU countries, the sources said.

Merkel is engaged in a fight for her political survival with the rebellious CSU, which has pressured her for weeks to get tough on immigration and asylum as it fears being outflanked to the right by anti-immigrant, anti-Islam Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Facing regional elections in October, the CSU, the sister party of Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), has been pushing for tougher rules on migration.

The chancellor rejects Seehofer’s plan for Germany to unilaterally turn away at the border already-registered asylum seekers, preferring to seek cooperation with Germany’s neighbours.

Merkel fears that if Germany closes its borders it will set off a chain reaction that destroys Europe’s border-free travel zone, regarded by the EU as one of its greatest achievements, as well as a linchpin of jobs and prosperity.

Merkel drew up a raft of plans to tighten controls on the influx of migrants, according to a document submitted to her coalition partners at the weekend. At her urging, EU leaders last week agreed a slew of measures to reduce immigration to the bloc and so-called “secondary migration” of asylum seekers between countries.

Merkel also said she had struck deals with 16 other countries for them to take back already-registered asylum seekers. But central European nations including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia denied any such agreement. “Germany has not addressed us and I will not sign this agreement,” Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš said in a statement. “No negotiations have taken place between the Czech Republic and Germany on this question,” he added.

Merkel on Sunday said she wanted her Christian Democratic Union and its Bavarian allies to continue working together. She told German broadcaster ZDF that differences with the CSU only related to the way to achieve a reduction in migration, not to the goal as such.

She said: “I share the CSU’s aim of on the one hand reducing the number of immigrants being brought to Europe by smugglers, and on the other hand I also share the view that asylum seekers can’t simply choose which country they want to go to.”

If Seehofer rejects Merkel’s approach and orders border police to begin turning away already-registered asylum seekers, she would be forced to fire him, effectively exploding her conservative camp and robbing her ruling coalition with the Social Democratic party (SPD) of a majority in parliament.

While most analysts expect Merkel to survive the clash with the CSU, it is unlikely to be the last occasion on which the sister party seeks to distance itself from a chancellor it sees as too centrist for its own supporters.

Spain’s maritime rescue service on Sunday picked up 160 people from five boats that were crossing the dangerous Strait of Gibraltar from northern Africa.

The rescue service said 57 migrants were rescued from three boats on Sunday morning and brought ashore in Tarifa, at the southernmost tip of the Iberian peninsula. Another rescue vessel took 103 people to Algeciras, a large port city to the east.

The number of people reaching Europe by the so-called western Mediterranean land and sea route to Spain has surpassed boat arrivals to Italy this year.
Austria's coalition government unveils plans to cut benefit payments for immigrants, including refugees, in a move aimed at deterring new arrivals.