GETTY Angela Merkel has been blasted by Austria

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Vienna’s defence minister Hans Peter Doskozil said the controversial Chancellor was “encouraging” more asylum seekers from the Middle East to flock to Europe in a provocative outburst. The stinging slap down comes amid disintegrating relations between the two neighbours over the migrant crisis, with Austria repeatedly accusing Germany and Mrs Merkel of sparking the refugee chaos.

Vienna has been locked in a power struggle with Berlin and Brussels over its controversial migration policies, which include limiting the daily number of asylum applications it will process. And Mr Doskozil upped the ante against Mrs Merkel, saying that she must stop repeating her infamous “Wir schaffen das” - “We can do this” - slogan which he said was only encouraging more migrant chaos.

GETTY Hans Peter Doskozil said the German leader must close Germany's borders

GETTY Austria has been locked in a battle with Brussels over its migration policies

He blasted: "Germany must clearly state: the borders are closed. "I do not understand why the German Chancellor Angela Merkel has repeated her sentence 'we can do this'. This time it was 'We can still do it'. This is yet again seen as encouragement to come to Germany." He added: "We will not accept that this encouragement puts Austria into a position that then makes more refugees want to go from Italy via Austria to Germany while Germany closes its borders at the same time. “We decided that waving them through is no longer possible, and that is a good thing!"

Germany must clearly state: the borders are closed. Hans Peter Doskozil

Asked what retaliatory measures Austria would take if there was another mass migrant rush for Europe, the defence minister replied that he would effectively seal up Italy by closing the Brenner Pass border between the two countries. Vienna already has plans in place to build a massive border fence at the mountain pass, which is the main crossing point in the Alps between Austria and Italy. And he said the only way to stop a border shutdown was for "the Chancellor to finally come out with a clear signal about where the capacity limits are, that in fact this isn't doable”. He added: “Germany now has to make a clear statement".

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