The Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has warned of a coming “conflagration” in the European Union, and has blamed the mass migration policy for the political power bloc’s woes.

Seeing the outcome of Europe’s present migrant crisis as nothing short of the breakup of the European Union (EU), Mr. Kurz said it was time for serious action to be taken on immigration, reports Die Welt. Identifying their northern neighbours and the commanding force in the EU as a source of resistance to a more nuanced approach to mass migration, Mr. Kurz said “I would like to see more understanding in Germany of our position, especially as Germany has no problem with [maintaining] controls on our border”.

Foreign minister Mr. Kurz, one of the youngest senior ministers in Europe, supported a significantly more radical approach to the ingress of migrants from the Mediterranean than is presently openly accepted as possible in Berlin and Brussels.

Following his suggestion of migrant holding islands in the Mediterranean where illegals could be safely kept and processed before being either deported or accepted into Europe, Mr. Kurz said today on his ambition to prevent Europe imploding: “When those who are on their way illegally to Europe, they have to be stopped at the EU’s external border and are best returned to their country of origin.

“Then we don’t support the smugglers, because then more and more make their way, and even more people will drown.” Mr. Kurz called the EU’s migration policy a “dramatic failure” today.

The Foreign Minister called for a “streamlining of competences” in Brussels and for the bloc to confront the “big questions”, adding that it was urgent for the power bloc to change fast or perish. He said: “Only by a fast pace of change can we stop a conflagration. The EU needs to be reorganised. Everyone who supports Europe needs to be a driver for change”.

These remarks followed others Mr. Kurz made on Friday, immediately after Britain’s vote to leave the EU, when he said he could not “rule out” a domino-effect of nations scrambling to get out of the EU. Again he pointed to the migrant crisis as the driving force, remarking: “the high level of dissatisfaction about the levels of migration is also present in other countries, especially with the lack of [action from the] EU on the refugee crisis”.