"It is fair to say that last year was the year of deportations," said Karner, praising his own policy. If someone has forfeited their right to remain in the country, they must leave it. The focus of the 5,990 forced deportations was on criminal cases, emphasized the Minister of the Interior. Even though the majority of these are EU citizens, he also sees successes in asylum policy. Austria has become unattractive for smugglers.

Karner sees "measures taking effect"
Karner particularly highlighted the 30 bilateral repatriation agreements with other countries, most recently Bulgaria and Romania. Asylum seekers whose country of origin is not considered safe are deported to these countries. "The measures are working," emphasized Karner.

The Deputy Director of the Federal Office for Immigration and Asylum (BFA), Karoline Preißer, also emphasized the good cooperation. Karner wants to "keep up the pressure" to ensure that deportations can also be carried out to countries such as Syria and Afghanistan.

The asylum figures for the past year were also presented once again: there were 59,232 applications last year, 47 percent fewer than in 2022. By far the largest group of asylum applications came from Syrian citizens. The BFA decided on a total of 78,741 cases, 19 percent (14,748) of which were granted asylum, while 8430 people were granted temporary protection or a humanitarian right to stay. This contrasts with 24,391 (31 percent) negative decisions, and there were also 31,172 withdrawals from proceedings.