Austrian Chancellor Kurz urges rapid EU action on migration

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz will push at a meeting of European leaders for rapid action on migration. Bavaria’s Christian Social Union (CSU) on Monday gave German Chancellor Angela Merkel two weeks to get a deal with European allies on migration. Kurz, an immigration hard-liner, wants a tougher mandate for Frontex, the EU border agency, to intervene at sea and abroad, Reuters reports. “We have reached a point where the position of most countries goes in the right direction, where most agree that open external borders are the wrong way,” Kurz said on Wednesday. The statement came after a joint cabinet meeting between the governments of Austria and Bavaria, which lie across the German border from each other. Speaking of the asylum centers, Kurz said: “Should the will not be there… we will definitely have to think about how we as individual states can start such projects together in a small group.” For now, the aim is a European solution, he added.